Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Alterations In Resting State Functional Connectivity Associated With Alcohol Use Severity And Impulsivity In A Community Sample, Elena R. Stein

Psychology ETDs

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is characterized by neurocognitive and behavioral impairments including the multidimensional construct of impulsivity. Increased impulsivity is both a risk factor for, and a consequence of problematic alcohol use. Individuals with AUD exhibit alterations in neural circuitry when compared to those who do not have AUD. These circuit-level changes in AUD may underlie the difficulties that these individuals experience with heightened impulsivity. The present study uses data-driven resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) methodology to examine the differences in intrinsic functional networks between individuals with AUD and those who are social drinkers (SD). Participants in this secondary data …

The Relationship Between Cognitive And Neural Bases Of Metamemory Judgments, Alexandra M. Gaynor

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Metamemory monitoring, the process of making subjective assessments of the status of one’s own memory, is crucial to guiding behavior and effective learning. Past cognitive research has shown that subjective confidence judgments are inferential in nature, and based on cues available at the time of the judgment. When confidence is based on cues that are related to objective memory performance, metamemory accuracy is high. However, past studies have shown that metamemory monitoring tends to be inaccurate because individuals base their confidence on information that is not predictive of memory success, such as the fluency with which items were encoded during …

A Functional Neuroimaging Study Of Self-Regulatory Control In Adults With Gambling And Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders, Nidhi Parashar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Objective: Recent findings suggest phenomenological similarities across gambling and obsessive-compulsive disorders. The key similarity between the disorders is the failure to inhibit or control a repetitive behavior (or urges to engage in a behavior) and intrusive thoughts. Our current understanding of the neural pathophysiological mechanisms linking gambling and obsessive-compulsive disorders is limited. Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine the functioning of frontostriatal brain regions that support self-regulatory control in adults with gambling and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Methods: The study compared functional magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen level dependent response in 19 adults with pathological gambling (PG), …

Levels Of Processing And The Parietal Memory Network, Hung-Yu Chen

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The parietal memory network (PMN) is a functional brain network that has been recently described through the convergence of task-based fMRI and resting-state functional MRI studies (Gilmore et al., 2015). The networkճ characteristic encoding/retrieval flip (deactivation at encoding and activation at later retrieval, discussed by Gilmore and colleagues) and its manifestation of a negative subsequent memory effect (greater deactivation at encoding for items that will later be recognizedѩ.e., subsequent hitsѴhan for those that will notѳubsequent misses) (Cabeza et al., 2004; Daselaar, Prince, & Cabeza, 2004; De Chastelaine & Rugg, 2014; Elman, Rosner, Cohn-Sheehy, Cerreta, & Shimamura, 2013; Kim, 2011; Otten …

Hpa Axis Genetic Variation And Life Stress Influences On Functional Connectivity In Resting State Networks, Tara Ann Miskovich

Theses and Dissertations

Stressful or traumatic experiences are a key risk factor for developing psychopathology, primarily through the impact that chronic stress has on hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning. The HPA axis regulates the stress response but can become dysregulated with chronic activation and impact brain functioning. In addition to environmental stressors, genetic variation in genes in the HPA axis appear to influence HPA axis functioning and is also related to disruption in brain functioning, particularly in the context of high life stress. The current study focused on examining potential mechanisms through which trauma and stress interacts with HPA axis genes to impact key …

Neural Correlates Of Memory Decisions Made In The Face Of Conflict, Elaine Mahoney

Theses and Dissertations

We’ve all experienced moments where, for some reason or another, we don’t want to reveal to others what we truly know. The current experiment investigated questions about the behavioral and neural correlates of these types of memory decisions made in the face of a conflicting goal. Participants in this experiment studied several scene-face pairs and were tested with three-face displays preceded by studied scene cues. They were instructed to indicate whether the three-face display contained the matching associate or not. Critically, half of the participants were instructed to simulate feigned memory impairment (i.e. simulators), while the remainder were instructed to …

A Graph Theoretical Analysis Of Functional Brain Networks Related To Memory And Healthy Aging, Ty Alvin Bodily

Theses and Dissertations

The cognitive decline associated with healthy aging begins in early adulthood and is important to understand as a precursor of and relative to mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease. Anatomical atrophy, functional compensation, and network reorganization have been observed in populations of older adults. In the current study, we examine functional network correlates of memory performance on the Wechsler Memory Scale IV and the Mnemonic Discrimination Task (MST). We report a lack of association between global graph theory metrics and age or memory performance. In addition, we observed a positive association between lure discrimination scores from the MST and right …

Gray Matter Correlates Of Emotional Intelligence In Incarcerated Males, Devin Marie Ulrich

Psychology ETDs

Emotional intelligence (EI) is form of social intelligence that is important for navigating one’s social environment. Deficits in these abilities have been associated negative psychological outcomes such as anxiety, substance use, and aggression. Here, we extend current literature that suggests that EI is correlated with gray matter volume (GMV) in limbic regions (e.g. insula ventromedial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, and cerebellum) in healthy samples, by using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to assess the relationship between GMV and EI. In study 1, emotional intelligence was positively correlated with GMV in the cerebellum and anterior cingulate cortex in a sample of incarcerated adult …