Biological Psychology Commons^™

Anxiety-Like Behavior In C57bl/6j Mice Is Sexually Dimorphic And Altered By Buprenorphine, Ohm Sharma

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Opioid-Induced Respiratory Depression In C57bl/6j Mice: The Role Of Prefrontal Cortex Cholinergic Transmission In The Wakefulness Stimulus For Breathing, Wilton Sun

Select or Award-Winning Individual Scholarship

Opioid-induced respiratory depression (OIRD) is the primary cause of death from opioid overdose. Opioids depress breathing by diminishing the wakefulness stimulus for breathing in humans and mice. Cholinergic transmission in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) promotes cortical EEG activation, increases wakefulness, and stimulates breathing. However, no previous studies have tested whether increasing cholinergic transmission in the PFC can mitigate respiratory depression caused by systemically administered fentanyl in mice. The series of studies comprising this honors thesis is split into two phases. The first phase included a concentration response study evaluating the effects of fentanyl on breathing in C57BL/6J mice breathing room …

Efficacy Of Creative Interventions In Virtual Reality, Matthew Thomas Richesin

Masters Theses

Engaging in creative activities is known to increase well-being by reducing levels of stress, anxiety, and improve life satisfaction. Interventions utilizing creative activities have proven to enhance therapeutic results in various mental disorders. Similarly, virtual reality has emerged as an effective method of decreasing negative aspects of mental disorders. While both creative interventions and virtual reality show promise in enhancing well-being, the efficacy of combining the two has not been explored. This study aimed to combine and compare 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional art-making on stress, anxiety, and mood in a non-clinical college student sample. To accomplish this, both physiological and self-report …

The Effects Of Relationships On Ans Function And Wellness, Olivia M. Maples

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

The quality of relationships and social networks plays a vital role on well-being (Feeney & Collins, 2015). Social support is linked to positive biological profiles in that social support protects against the negative effects of changes in cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, and immune function. Furthermore, when exploring Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) function, higher heart rate variability has been shown to reflect a psychophysiological state compatible with social interaction (Quintana, Guastella, Outhred, Hickie, & Kemp, 2012). Social support has been shown to buffer against the negative effects of life stressors (Cohen & Wills, 1985), and ultimately, mortality (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010). In …

Acute Social Defeat-Induced Neuroinflammation In The Vmpfc Of Syrian Hamsters Via Microglial Activation, Thomas Clarity

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

Research suggests causal relationships between neuroinflammation and stress-related psychopathologies. Exposure to moderate or chronic psychological stress in rodents leads to increased activation of microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells. The ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a key limbic region involved in top-down regulation of psychological stress and mediates the deleterious effects of microglial activity following prolonged restraint stress. While there is a growing body of literature indicating that chronic social defeat increases microglial activity in the vmPFC, there has been little research investigating the effects of acute social defeat stress. Here, we used an acute social defeat paradigm in …

Investigating The Role Of Testosterone Signaling At Androgen Receptors In Resiliency To Social Stress, Catherine Tucker Clinard

Doctoral Dissertations

Social experience can alter how individuals cope with stressful events and contribute to individual differences in stress vulnerability. We have previously tested dominant and subordinate male Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) in a conditioned defeat model and found that dominant individuals show reduced defeat-induced changes in behavior compared to subordinates. Dominant hamsters also show increased neural activation following social defeat stress in brain regions that regulate social behavior and coping with stress, including the medial amygdala (MeA). Because winning aggressive encounters generates a surge in plasma testosterone and androgen receptors are abundant in the MeA, we tested whether testosterone …

Therapy Dogs In The College Classroom: The Effect Of Dogs On Stress, Anxiety, And Spanish L2 Phonological Learning And Performance, Elaine Maralee Henry

Doctoral Dissertations

Anxiety and stress invoked by the second language classroom setting has the ability to cause numerous detrimental physiological changes which impair the learning process. A more natural, “immersion” type atmosphere is often desired when teaching a second language; however, this is not typically possible with college classes. Therefore, the addition of therapy dogs to college second language classes may be a beneficial solution since therapy dogs are frequently cited as having the ability to lower stress and anxiety in many different settings. Stroking and interacting with a dog may reduce many markers of stress, including blood pressure, heart rate, and …

Modulating Neuronal Activity: Copper, Isoproterenol, And Beta-Blockers On The Brain, Veronica Go

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Obesity In Society: The Importance Of Perception, Michael Darnell Oliver Ii

Masters Theses

In the current study, I examined the role of positive and negative media images of obese individuals on attitudes and physiological responding in relation to an actual discrimination incident. Various surveys were administered and Body Mass Index (BMI), salivary Alpha Amylase (sAA), and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) or Skin Conductance (SC) were measured. Participants read a vignette in which an obese individual was discriminated against and further questions were administered to assess attributional blame. My primary hypothesis in this study was that there would be a decrease in stigma due to positive priming, specifically stigma directed at the obese population. …

Electrophysiological Cross-Modality Comparisons Of Infant Individual Differences In Holistic Processing And Selective Inhibition, Matthew Singh

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Bayes, Brains & Babies: Electrophysiology And Mathematics Of Infant Holistic Processing And Selective Inhibition, Matthew Singh

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

No abstract provided.

Comparing Stress Responses In Generalized Anxiety Disorder Vs. Non-Clinical Populations: A Cortisol And Alpha-Amylase Study, Dominic Joseph Di Loreto

Masters Theses

Debilitating anxiety affects 6.8 million Americans. Cortisol is an established measure of the stress response which reflects the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity. However, salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) is a relatively new measure of the stress response, and it reflects the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary pathway (SAM pathway) activity. Our aim was to compare these two aspects of the stress response in a Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and a non-clinical population under a stressful stimulus (Knee replacement surgery video). To our knowledge this is the first time anyone has looked at both sAA and cortisol together with respect to GAD. We hypothesized that both cortisol …

Do Dogs Increase Learning? The Effect Of Therapy Dogs On Academic Stress And Spanish Second Language Learning, Elaine Maralee Henry

Masters Theses

Numerous physiological changes occur during periods of high stress and learning Spanish as a second language in a classroom setting may induce significant levels of academic stress. A possible solution is the use of therapy dogs in second language classes since therapy dogs are known to lower stress and improve physiological measures such as heart rate and blood pressure. Data were collected from 18 University of Tennessee-Knoxville juniors and seniors. A within subjects design required participants to listen to a short Spanish lesson during three conditions: baseline, therapy dog, and no therapy dog. In all conditions, saliva samples were collected …

Effects Of 5-Ht1a Receptors On The Development Of Stress-Induced Changes In Behavior, Lauren Renee Bader

Masters Theses

Social defeat leads to both increased anxiety-like behavior and the formation of a fear memory for a specific opponent. We have shown that serotonin (5-HT) signaling, particularly in the basolateral amygdala (BLA), alters the acquisition of the conditioned defeat response in Syrian hamsters. While activation of 5-HT1A receptors impairs the acquisition of conditioned defeat, it is unclear whether these receptors alter the development of anxiety-like behavior or formation of fear memories. One method for investigating the formation of defeat-induced fear memories is to measure avoidance of former opponents, and many researchers have reliably used the open field as a measure …

The Physiological And Psychological Connection: The Body’S Response To Ceased Exercise From Athletic Injury, Patricia Rotella Ligon

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Social Status On Social Defeat-Induced Neural Activation In The Dorsal Raphe Nucleus, Danielle M. Gerhard, Kathleen E. Morrison, Matthew A. Cooper

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Alarm Calling In The Context Of Flying Predator Stimuli: A Field Study Of Carolina Chickadees (Poecile Carolinensis), Christopher Erik Zachau

Masters Theses

This study describes chick-a-dee calling behavior of Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis) in the presence of “flying” predator models. Previous experimental research with black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapilla) as well as Mexican chickadees (Poecile sclateri) suggested a relationship between the presence of predator stimuli and the note composition of chick-a-dee calls.

Carolina chickadees were presented with two types of stimuli in field settings. These models were painted to resemble either a predatory sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus) or a blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata). Models consisted of pairs of five varying shapes, making ten models in …

Effect Of Social Status On Behavioral And Neural Response To Stress, Daniel W. Curry, Kathleen E. Morrison, Matthew A. Cooper

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Social Status On Behavioral And Neural Response To Stress, Daniel W. Curry, Kathleen E. Morrison, Matthew A. Cooper

Senior Thesis Projects, 2009

Individuals respond differently to traumatic stress. Social status, which plays a key role in how animals experience and interact with their social environment, may influence how individuals respond to stressors. In this study, we used a conditioned defeat model to investigate whether social status alters susceptibility to the behavioral and neural consequences of traumatic stress. Conditioned defeat is a model in Syrian hamsters in which an acute social defeat encounter results in a long term increase in submissive behavior and a loss of normal territorial aggression. To establish social status, we weight matched and paired Syrian hamsters in daily aggressive …