Neurosciences Commons^™

“For Haitian Culture, Being Older [Is] A Blessing”: Perceptions Of Aging, Elderhood, And Dementia In A Haitian Born Sample, Melissa K. Eustache

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how first-generation Haitian immigrants in the United States understand and interpret dementia within the intersecting contexts of culture, migration, and biomedicine. While dementia is constructed as a pathological “loss of self” and a public health epidemic, in American biomedical and popular discourse, this study examines how Haitian-born individuals—socialized within a non-Western cultural and spiritual framework—make sense of cognitive decline and impairment in ways that diverge from Western biomedical narratives. Guided by theoretical orientations from medical anthropology, including Mark Nichter’s idioms of distress, Margaret Lock’s local biologies, and neuroanthropology, this research explores how cultural models of illness, aging, …

Proteomic Characterization Of The Neuronal Bin1 Interactome In Homeostatic And Alzheimer’S Disease Mouse Brains, Joseph Mcmillan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The gene BIN1 is the second-largest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD). It is expressed in neurons and glia in the brain as cell-type specific and ubiquitous isoforms. BIN1 is an adaptor protein that regulates membrane dynamics in many cell types. Previously, we reported that BIN1 predominantly localizes to presynaptic terminals in neurons and regulates presynaptic vesicular release. However, the function of neuronal BIN1 in relation to LOAD is not yet fully understood. A significant gap in the field is the unbiased characterization of neuronal BIN1-interacting proteins and proximal neighbors. To address this gap and help define the …

Untangling The Roles Of Pulmonary Vagal Afferent Subsets With Inhaled Irritants, Teresa Darcey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The sensory nerves in the airways directly regulate critical defenses and indirectly regulate vital gas exchange. Airway function is largely controlled by the autonomic nervous system, and our understanding of its sensory regulation is directly connected to our ability to treat respiratory and cardiovascular pathologies. Airway sensory afferents are heterogeneous with respect to their electrophysiological properties, peptidergic capacity, and stimuli sensitivity, which at least in part dictate some of their various functions. There is evidence that embryological origin impacts reflex function: activation of the neural crest-derived population of sensory afferents has been shown to evoke the cough reflex whereas activation …

Human Adipose Stem Cell-Derived Small Extracellular Vesicles Modulate Glial Cell Response In Aged And Young Tbi Mouse Models, Salma S. Abdelmaboud

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of long-term neurological impairment, with aging significantly increasing vulnerability and worsening outcomes. Older individuals experience greater cognitive and motor deficits after TBI and often show diminished responses to therapeutic interventions. Both aging and TBI independently promote heightened neuroinflammation and cognitive dysfunction, increasing susceptibility to poor recovery. This study investigated the therapeutic potential of small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) derived from human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs) to promote neurological recovery and modulate neuroinflammation in a mouse model of TBI. Male C57BL/6 mice aged 3, 15, and 20 months underwent controlled cortical impact (CCI) and …

Enhancing State-Of-The-Art Motor Imagery Classification With Reinforcement Learning, Anton Shepelev

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

One of the key obstacles to the rapid adoption of non-invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) for Motor Imagery (MI) is the low signal-to-noise ratio, and the substantial data requirements which can be mentally taxing for users. EEGNet, a compact Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), has long been considered the state-of-the-art (SOTA) for MI classification, demonstrating strong performance even with limited data. However, recent studies advocate for integrating Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) to further enhance classification accuracy by dynamically optimizing feature extraction and decision-making processes. Despite this potential, practical implementations remain scarce due to challenges in stabilizing RL training and adapting it to …

Dnajb6: A Potent Dnajb Chaperone In Regulating Tau Proteostasis, Abigail R. Esquivel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neurodegenerative diseases often feature the pathological buildup of misfolded proteins, and tau is a principal culprit in multiple tauopathies. One chaperone of emerging interest is DnaJB6b, a member of the Hsp40/DnaJ family, which exhibits potent anti-aggregation activity against several disease-related proteins. Recent investigations highlight its unique capacity to recognize and neutralize aggregation-prone forms of tau. DnaJB6b appears potent against multiple variants of tau and may be acting against tau, in part, by directing misfolded tau toward proteasomal clearance. The first lines of evidence come from systematic chaperone screens, where DnaJB6b repeatedly emerged as a strong suppressor of tau seeding. Further …

Narratives Of Resilience: The Power Of Creative Expression And Community Support During Familial Incarceration, Alana Alexander

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Existing literature stresses that the far-reaching effects of mass incarceration extend beyond prison walls, profoundly shaping familial experiences. Despite this, families remain consistently overlooked in criminal justice discourse, leading to heightened stress and diminished resilience. This thesis is a program review of a community-based program, referred to here as the Storytelling, Creativity, and Care (SCC) program, to protect the confidentiality of its participants and activities. The SCC program integrates neuroscience and narrative theory to explore how storytelling influences cultural perceptions, shapes lived experiences, and supports psychological and physiological healing. Additionally, this work investigates the socio-political narratives that perpetuate stigma and …

On The Role Of Prediction In Streaming Hierarchical Learning, Ramy Mounir

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In today's world, AI systems need to make sense of large amounts of data as it unfolds in real-time, whether it's a video from surveillance and monitoring cameras, streams of egocentric footage, or sequences in other domains such as text or audio. The ability to break these continuous data streams into meaningful events, discover nested structures, and predict what might happen next at different levels of abstraction is crucial for applications ranging from passive surveillance systems to sensory-motor autonomous learning. However, most existing models rely heavily on large, annotated datasets with fixed data distributions and offline epoch-based training, which makes …

Sars-Cov-2 Neurotropism: Understanding Effects At The Blood-Brain Barrier And Hematogenous Neuroinvasiveness, Taylor E. Martinez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus responsible for COVID-19, has provisional counts of over 110 million documented cases and 1.218 million deaths (as of February 2024) in the United States since January 2020. SARS-CoV-2 is an airborne respiratory virus that primarily infects the lungs via the ACE2 receptor but has well-documented secondary target organs including the kidneys, the gastrointestinal tract, the heart, and the skin. SARS-CoV-2 also infects the brain, but the hematogenous route of viral entry to brain is still not fully characterized. Understanding how SARS-CoV-2 traverses the blood-brain barrier (BBB) as well as how it …

Modeling The Human Learning Process Using An Industrial Steam Boiler Analogy To Design A Psychophysiological-Based Hypermedia Adaptive Automation System, Liliana María Villavicencio López

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to address the existing gap in the integration of various dimensions within the student learning system, encompassing cognitive, emotional, and physical variables. The primary objective is to construct a Personalized Learning Adaptive Automation model using Electroencephalography (EEG) technology.

To provide deeper insight into the intricate nature of the Human Learning Process, this study introduces a novel analogy with an Industrial Steam Boiler. This analogy serves as a distinctive contribution to research in the field.

The research methodology involved the collection of brainwaves data from engineering students while they undertook educational tasks of varying levels of difficulty, categorized …

Elucidating The Role Of The Tumor Suppressor Gene Rna-Binding Motif 5 (Rbm5) In Models Of Traumatic Brain Injury, Kara L. Snyder

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a worldwide health burden that causes death and disability. Clinical management of TBI involves guideline-based protocols to limit secondary brain injury but there remains an unmet need for therapeutics to target neuroprotection and to improve cognitive outcomes in patients. This dissertation concerns the examination of RNA binding motif 5 (RBM5) as a potential therapeutic gene target to promote neuroprotection in models of TBI. RBM5 is a potent pro-death tumor suppressor gene in cancer. We hypothesized that it also promotes cell death in neurons in the brain and therefore its inhibition would decrease neuropathology following CNS …

The Functions Of Oligodendrocyte Lineage-Derived Laminins Under Homeostatic And Intracerebral Hemorrhagic Stroke Conditions, Minkyung Kang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oligodendrocyte lineage is a glial cell population in the central nervous system. The lineage starts with oligodendrocyte precursor cells, which differentiate and mature into mature oligodendrocytes. Myelination, the major function of mature oligodendrocytes, plays a significant role for normal function of the central nervous system, and its dysfunction leads to many demyelinating diseases, such as multiple sclerosis. During the lineage progression, an extracellular matrix protein, laminin, actively regulates the cells' biology, including cell proliferation, differentiation, and myelination. However, the cellular sources of the laminin that controls oligodendrocyte lineage cells remain largely unknown. Interestingly, previous studies have shown that oligodendrocyte lineage …

Vascular And Auditory Changes After Repetitive Traumatic Brain Injury, Courtney Lynn Penn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects over 2.87 million people in the US each year. The large majority of these injuries can be classified as mild. However, evidence suggests that even mild TBIs can lead to long-lasting symptoms that greatly impact quality of life. This is particularly true when an individual sustains multiple TBIs (repetitive TBI, rTBI). Much of the damage caused by rTBI is due to secondary injury mechanisms that cause the initial injury site to spread and worsen over time. No therapies currently exist which can mitigate secondary injury, and monitoring this phase of rTBI is difficult. Development of …

Bioinformatic Analysis Predicts Microglial Dysfunction In Murine Aging, Amadu Idrisa Jalloh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Age-related disease is a growing concern as the global geriatric population increases. Neurodegenerative diseases scale unfavorably in prevalence with aging and inflict disastrous consequences to human health and well-being. These disorders are challenging to investigate because they arise from complex molecular origins. The neuroimmune system is a common factor among these diseases and microglia play an important role in maintaining homeostasis in the central nervous system. Aging progressively impairs microglia by decreasing their ability to adapt and respond to noxious environmental stimuli or injury. Microglial dysfunction aggravates neurodegenerative pathology when microglia are unable to regulate neuroinflammation effectively. We investigated aging …

Nrf2 Sequestration By Ssh1 Tips The Balance From Neuroprotection To Neurodegeneration In Alzheimer’S Disease, Sara G. Cazzaro Buosi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oxidative damage is one of the earliest events in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis and precedes the clinical stage of disease. The nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor (Nrf2) is activated in response to oxidative stress, which protects the brain from oxidative damage and AD pathogenesis. Although Nrf2-mediated oxidative stress response declines with age and becomes dysfunctional in AD brains, the mechanistic basis for this dysfunction is unknown. Here, we demonstrate through in vitro and in vivo models, as well as in human AD brain tissue, that Slingshot homolog-1 (SSH1) acts as a counterweight to neuroprotective Nrf2 in response to oxidative stress …

A Multiple Input Multiple Output Framework For The Automatic Optical Fractionator-Based Cell Counting In Z-Stacks Using Deep Learning, Palak Dave

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Quantifying cells in a defined region of biological tissue is critical for many clinical and preclinical studies, especially in pathology, toxicology, cancer, and behavior. Unbiased stereology is the state-of-art method for quantification of the total number and other morphometric parameters of stained objects in a defined region of biological tissue. As part of a program to develop accurate, precise, and more efficient automatic approaches for quantifying morphometric changes in biological tissue, our group has shown that both deep learning-based and hand-crafted algorithms can estimate the total number of histologically stained cells at their maximal profile of focus in extended depth …

Reelin Supplementation For The Rescue Of Fragile X Syndrome., Nicole K. Morrill

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reelin is a large, extracellular matrix glycoprotein involved in neuronal migration during embryonic brain development and synaptic plasticity in the adult brain. Reelin consists of eight EGF-like repeats and undergoes natural cleavage at two sites, between repeats 2 and 3 and repeats 5 and 6, resulting in five naturally occurring fragments. The role of Reelin in the developing central nervous system has been extensively characterized, and loss of Reelin or disruption in the signaling cascade may contribute to the cognitive impairments seen in numerous neurodevelopmental or aging diseases such as schizophrenia, autism, depression, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s disease. Reelin’s signaling potentiates …

Noninvasive In Vivo Optoacoustic Imaging Of Alcohol Use Disorder Using A Mouse Model Of Alcohol Use Disorder, Augustine Meombe Mbolle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research has two parts. The first part focuses on the use of photoacoustic imaging (PAI) to study alcohol-induced effects in the cerebral vasculature of selectively bred alcohol-preferring mice. Part two extends the application of PAI by developing a novel Photoacoustic imaging guided system for repetitive low intensity focused ultrasound (PAI-LIFU) stimulation treatment for alcohol use disorder in crossed high alcohol preferring (cHAP) mice.

Photoacoustic imaging is an emerging hybrid non-invasive optical imaging modality which relies on optical absorption contrast to visualize deep tissue structures and function. It combines the high contrast associated with pure optical imaging and the high …

Small Heat Shock Protein 22 Preserves Neuronal Function In A Murine Model Of Tauopathy, Santiago Rodriguez Ospina

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Proteinopathies is a family of diseases associated with the pathological aggregation of protein. There are a multitude of proteinopathies, like tauopathy and synucleinopathy that contribute to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Creutzfeldt-Jakob, Pick’s disease, Frontotemporal dementia, and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Currently, one focus of research in the field is mitigating aggregation-prone proteins contributing to disease state. One method of targeting aggregation is the use of chaperones. Chaperones are molecular machinery that help maintain homeostasis in the cells, through various roles and mechanisms, one of those methods is to regulate protein aggregation. Chaperones can achieve this by affecting protein-protein interactions, …

Impact Of Arginine Metabolism And Sensing In Mouse Models Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Chao Ma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains the most common neurodegenerative disease in the central nervous system (CNS), with amyloidosis and tauopathy as their two main hallmarks. Typical AD pathologies include cerebral plaques deposited by amyloid-β, neurofibrillary tangles aggregated by tau, and neuroinflammation caused by activated brain myeloid cells. A critical theme is centered on impaired brain metabolism. Emerging evidence showed that impaired arginine metabolism was a novel biomarker pathway for AD. The manipulation of arginine metabolism by a critical enzyme arginase 1 (ARG1) in neurons indicated therapeutic benefits in alleviating tau pathology. Balanced cellular proteostasis was governed by the mechanistic target of …

Investigations Into The Improvement Of Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics, Austin W. Nenninger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Angelman syndrome (AS) is a rare genetic neurodevelopmental disease caused by interruption of the function of the ubiquitin ligase UBE3A gene. Patients experience an early life onset of symptoms which include pronounced intellectual disability, drastic speech impairmentor inability to speak, severe movement disorders, seizures, aggression, disruptive sleep impairment, and unusual personality traits. Estimates of prevalence show that approximately 1:15000 births are affected.

The disease is severe, and the burden can be devastating to the patients and the caregivers that they require for the duration of their relatively normal lifespan. Current treatments for the disease are lacking. Many are expensive and …

Contribution Of Retinal Ganglion Cells To Brown-Norway Rat Spatiotemporal Visual Perception And The Electroretinogram, Nicholas P. Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGCs) are the sole cells through which visual information is transmitted from the eye to the brain. As such, RGC dysfunction has a dramatic effect on vision and perception. Retinal neurodegenerative diseases, such as glaucoma, are one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. The study of these diseases requires well-characterized models in order to swiftly and effectively develop diagnostic tools and therapeutics. This dissertation aims to characterize specific properties of the visual system of the Brown-Norway rat. First, visual processing was evaluated in awake, freely moving rats. Contrast sensitivities of Brown-Norway rats were characterized by discrimination-driven …

Early Indicators Of Cognitive Dysfunction: The Role Of Mild Behavioral Impairment, Hillary J. Rouse

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Older age is associated with an increased risk for cognitively impairing diseases such as dementia. Despite significant research to find ways to cure this disease, there has been little success. However, a critical need when an intervention is discovered is a need to find ways to identify people who are at the greatest risk of developing dementia earlier in the disease process so that interventions can be implemented at that time. This could potentially lessen their risk or delay when they are diagnosed. Using longitudinal data from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC), the aims of this current dissertation were …

Activity-Dependent Regulation Of Extracellular Ube3a In A Novel Angelman Syndrome Rat Model, Andie Dodge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Angelman Syndrome (AS) is a rare genetic and neurologic disorder affecting approximately 1 in every 15,000 people. This disorder is characterized by seizures, absence of speech, motor and cognitive deficits, ataxia, and notably an abnormal happy demeanor with frequent smiling and laughter. A neuron-specific loss of function of the maternal allele of UBE3A, encoding for an E3 ubiquitin ligase, leads to the manifestation of AS. There are currently no cures for AS and few therapeutic options to abate symptoms. Although much investigation is required, research using the null mutation AS mouse model suggests a plausible case for pharmacological intervention.

Major …

Cognition In Health And Disease: Two Mouse Model Studies, Heather Lynn Mahoney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive and circadian dysfunction are common aspects of neuropsychiatric disease that are often overlooked in disease models and treatment strategies. In this work, we first evaluated the potential for cognitive enhancement in healthy adult mice by targeting a kinase involved in regulation of the molecular circadian clock. We then developed and characterized a model of neuropsychiatric disease that could present a target for rescuing circadian and cognitive deficits using this treatment.

Time-of-day effects have been noted in a wide variety of cognitive behavioral tests, and perturbation of circadian rhythms impairs hippocampus-dependent learning and memory. We first asked whether casein kinase …

Evaluation Of Aging And Genetic Mutation Variants On Tauopathy, Amber M. Tetlow

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by amyloid β plaques and neurofibrillary tau tangles (NFTs). While research has demonstrated amyloid pathology occurs prior to tau pathology, or tauopathy, tau has proven to be more toxic. Tauopathy is associated with cognitive declines and neurodegeneration. These findings have highlighted the importance of further understanding tauopathy. In the progression of tauopathy, there is an observable immune response that can be measured by glial cells such as microglia. Activated microglia are known to exacerbate tauopathy rather than reducing the pathology. Research has indicated that with increased age there is an increased risk for AD-related tauopathy …

Immune Modulation As A Therapeutic Target In An Α-Synuclein Model Of Parkinson’S Disease, Meena Subhashini Subbarayan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder affecting about 1.5 million people in the United States with more than 60,000 people diagnosed each year. It is classically characterized by four major symptoms: tremor, postural instability, stiffness in joints, and slow movement (bradykinesia). Pathologically PD is characterized by up to 70% loss of dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc) of midbrain and accumulation of presynaptic protein called α-synuclein (α-syn) within dopaminergic neurons that extend to the striatum. This disrupts the nigrostriatal pathway leading to the motor symptoms seen in PD patients. Microglia, the innate immune cells …

Ssh1 Impedes P62/Sqstm1 Flux And Tau Clearance Independent Of Cofilin Activation, Cenxiao Fang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Accumulation of toxic protein assemblies and damaged mitochondria are key features of neurodegenerative diseases, which arise in large part from clearance defects in the autophagy-lysosome system. The autophagy cargo receptor p62/SQSTM1 plays a major role in the clearance of ubiquitinated cargo through Ser403 phosphorylation by multiple kinases. However, no phosphatase is known to physiologically dephosphorylate p62 on this activating residue. RNAi-mediated knockdown and overexpression experiments using genetically encoded fluorescent reporters and defined mutant constructs in cell lines, primary neurons, and brains show that SSH1, the canonical cofilin phosphatase, mediates the dephosphorylation of phospho-Ser403-p62, thereby impairing p62 flux and phospho-tau clearance. …

Indicators Of Mild Cognitive Impairment Associated With Language Processing And Production, Diana Julbe-Delgado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The research purpose of the present study was to (1) examine cognitive-linguistic features related to processing and production across a series of tasks that are representative of everyday discourse and (2) compare older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) across linguistic features. Twenty-seven participants, including 12 individuals with- and 15 individuals without MCI, were enrolled from a larger study (Hudak et al., 2019). Cognitive status was initially assessed as part of the larger study using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA; Nasreddine et al., 2005). Participants who scored ≤ 25 on the MoCA received a standardized neuropsychological evaluation and …

Hybrid Electro-Plasmonic Stimulation Of Primary Neurons, Ratka Damnjanovic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Biomedical prosthetics utilizing electrical stimulation have limited, effective spatial resolution due to spread of electrical currents to surrounding tissue, causing nonselective stimulation. So, precise spatial resolution is not possible for traditional neural prosthetic devices, such as cochlear implants. More recently, alternative methods utilize optical stimulation, mainly infrared, sometimes paired with nanotechnology for stimulating action potentials, which has its own drawbacks, as it may heat surrounding tissue. Recently, we employed plasmonic stimulation methods utilizing gold nanoparticle-coated nanoelectrodes to convert visible light pulses into localized surface plasmon resonance transduction for stimulation of electrically excitable cells, which had limited success. Here, we report …