Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Biological Bases Of Political Attachment: Neurobiological Correlates Of Ideology And Partisanship, Carisa Bergner
The Biological Bases Of Political Attachment: Neurobiological Correlates Of Ideology And Partisanship, Carisa Bergner
Theses and Dissertations
To fully understand the foundations of political attachments in an increasingly polarized environment, political scientists must reconcile traditional theories of political attitudes and behavior with insight gained from neurobiological approaches. The purpose of this research is to investigate the neurobiological correlates of strength of political ideology and partisanship, as well as the neurobiological correlates of ideological and partisan orientation. To do so, both structural and functional neuroimaging analyses were conducted on a diverse sample of patients at a Level 1 Trauma Center. Results indicate that strong ideological attachment is significantly associated with decreased volume in the left insula, though partisan …
Neural Substrates Of Active Avoidance And Its Impact On Fear Extinction, Elizabeth Parisi
Neural Substrates Of Active Avoidance And Its Impact On Fear Extinction, Elizabeth Parisi
Theses and Dissertations
Models of anxiety suggest that avoidance of a conditioned fear stimulus prevents new safety learning, thereby serving to maintain fear. However, there is little empirical data in humans on the impact of avoidance of conditioned fear stimuli on subsequent fear extinction. In the present study I investigated the effect of avoidance of threat on neural activity during avoidance/control and a subsequent extinction phase using ultra high-resolution (7T) fMRI. Results indicated that active avoidance was associated with increased activity in regions involved in reward prediction, but this did not differentiate active avoidance from an active control condition. Neural activation during the …
Structural And Functional Brain Connectivity In Middle-Aged Carriers Of Risk Alleles For Alzheimer's Disease, Laura Korthauer
Structural And Functional Brain Connectivity In Middle-Aged Carriers Of Risk Alleles For Alzheimer's Disease, Laura Korthauer
Theses and Dissertations
Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in APOE, COMT, BDNF, and KIBRA have been associated with age-related memory performance and executive functioning as well as risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The purpose of the present investigation was to characterize differences in brain functional and structural integrity associated with these SNPs as potential endophenotypes of age-related cognitive decline. I focused my investigation on healthy, cognitively normal middle-aged adults, as disentangling the early effects of healthy versus pathological aging in this group may aid early detection and prevention of AD. The aims of the study were 1) to characterize SNP-related differences in functional connectivity …