Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Optimization Of Tyrosine Hydroxylase Antibody For Immunohistochemistry Fluorescence Detection In Zebrafish (Danio Rerio), Madison Thurber

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Dopamine is an important neurotransmitter produced through the catecholamine synthesis pathway that affects brain activity. Unregulated dopamine levels can lead to various diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Optimization of an immunohistochemistry protocol will allow for the quantification of tyrosine hydroxylase antibody, which indirectly allows for dopamine quantification in dopaminergic regions within the brain. However, the antibody concentration to give the optimal signal-to-noise ratio in IHC varies across studies. Through this experiment, I determined the concentration of tyrosine hydroxylase (TyrH) antibody for immunohistochemistry that gave the best signal-to-background noise ratio within several known dopaminergic regions …

Zebrafish Electroretinogram Responses, Brooke Campbell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of this project is to be able to streamline a protocol for conducting ERGs on zebrafish from mice ERG protocol already present in Dr. Renna’s lab. The objective is to create a protocol specifically for zebrafish and to eliminate any issues that occur when transiting from a mice ERG protocol to a zebrafish ERG protocol and to obtain a light response from zebrafish retinae in differing light intensities. Dr. Renna’s lab has designed an Ex Vivo ERG system with less electrical interference creating defined electrical responses from mouse retina. The setup allows for continual perfusion of the retinal …

Proceedings From The Third Annual Society For Neurosports Conference, Neurosports Editorial Staff

NeuroSports

Proceedings from the Third Annual Society for NeuroSports Conference

Music Advocacy: The Cognitive Development, Behavioral And Emotional Management, And Academic Success That Music Education Provides Students In Louisiana’S Low Socioeconomic Elementary Schools, Cory D. Dugar

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

There are many technological curricular activities in math and science classrooms, yet few are found in music classrooms. Although many elementary schools may be benefiting from advocacy for music and technology, many elementary schools in the state of Louisiana have lost funding for music programs. For the Louisiana Department of Education to act as an advocate for music education, there must be a thorough understanding of the benefits of music education. Extensive research is one way to suggest that elementary music classes can raise the cognitive capacity of elementary students and could be the catalyst for ensuring the upcoming generation’s …

Temporal Dynamics Of Natural Sound Categorization, Ali Tafakkor

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

While extensive research has elucidated the brain’s processing of semantics from speech sound waves and their mapping onto the auditory cortex, the temporal dynamics of how meaningful non-speech sounds are processed remain less examined. Understanding these dynamics is key to resolving the debate between cascaded and parallel hierarchical processing models, both plausible given the anatomical evidence. This study investigates how semantic category information from environmental sounds is processed in the temporal domain, using electroencephalography (EEG) collected from 25 participants and representational similarity analysis (RSA) along with models of acoustic and semantic information. We examined information extracted by the brain from …

Nmda Receptor Inhibition On Rodent Optimal Decision-Making In The Diminishing Returns Task, Seth Foust

Research Psychology Theses

There has been growing interest in using N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists as treatments for mood disorders, but there is still much to learn about their cognitive effects. Research shows NMDA receptors can affect decision-making, and the antagonist MK-801 has had varying effects in rodents. Specifically, some have reported impairments in working memory while foraging behaviors remained intact, while others have demonstrated changes in choice behavior related to delay or risk in behavior tasks. We investigated the role of NMDA receptors in the specific paradigm of optimal decision-making to further confirm MK-801’s effects and to explore whether inhibiting NMDA receptors alters …

Machine Learning Techniques For Improved Functional Brain Parcellation, Da Zhi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Brain parcellation studies are fundamental for neuroscience as they serve as a bridge between anatomy and function, helping researchers interpret how functions are distributed across different brain regions. However, two substantial challenges exist in current imaging-based brain parcellation studies: large variations in the functional organization across individuals and the intrinsic spatial dependence which causes nearby brain locations to have a similar function. This thesis presents a series of projects aimed to tackle these challenges from different perspectives by using advanced machine learning techniques.

To handle the challenge of individual variability in building precise individual parcellations, Chapter 3 introduces a novel …

Sex Differences In Mood And Anxiety-Related Outcomes In Response To Adolescent Nicotine Exposure, Tsun Hay Jason Ng

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Nicotine dependence is causally linked to increased risk of mood/anxiety disorders in later life. Females are reported to experience a higher prevalence of anxiety/depressive disorders and challenges in smoking cessation therapies, suggesting a potential sex-specific response to nicotine exposure and mood/anxiety disorder risk. However, pre-clinical evidence of sex-specific responses to adolescent nicotine exposure is unclear. Thus, to determine any sex differences in anxiety/depressive-related outcomes, adolescent male and female Sprague Dawley rats received nicotine (0.4 mg/kg; 3x daily) or saline injections for 10 consecutive days, followed by behavioural testing, in-vivo electrophysiology and Western Blot analyses. Our results revealed that adolescent nicotine …

The Consolidation Of Memory Associations, Kyle A. Kainec

Doctoral Dissertations

Creating memories is a fundamental challenge for the human brain. To create memories, defining features of experiences must be stored distinguishably without forgetting other memories. Memory associations represent co-occurring features and defining features across experiences. Memory associations are represented as networks of information that are stored in the brain. New memory associations are encoded during experiences and can be used to update existing memory associations during offline intervals. However, the mechanisms that underlie how encoded memory associations are stored within existing networks during offline intervals remains unclear. The experiments in this dissertation address a significant theoretical gap in understanding the …

Noradrenergic Regulation Of Decision-Making In Female And Male Rats, Emma S. Dauster

Doctoral Dissertations

Decision-making is regulated by many associated brain regions, including the locus coeruleus (LC) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Disruptions in decision-making are a key feature of many disorders including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder which is disproportionately diagnosed in one sex over another for reasons unknown. LC or its primary neurotransmitter norepinephrine (NE) have been implicated in the etiology or treatment of disrupted decision-making. Understanding the relationship among LC, PFC, and decision-making across sexes may provide insight into the basic neurobiology of cognition and disorders that lead to disrupted decision making.

There are sex differences in LC anatomy, however studies investigating sex differences …

The Modulation Of Lfp Characteristics In The Freely Moving Common Marmoset, William Jm Assis

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The hippocampus is a neural structure critical for navigation. Neurons in this region, along with others, create a functional network which generates large-amplitude modulations known as local field potential (LFP) activity. Prior LFP research has predominantly used rodent animal models, however recent studies have shown that frequencies associated with navigation in other mammals do not correlate to those of the rodent. We hypothesized that LFP characteristics in the common marmoset are modulated by the speed and axis of travel of the animal. Two marmosets were placed in a free moving 3-dimensional environment where movement and neurological activity were recorded. Results …

Microglial Response To Glucocorticoids During Chronic Sleep Fragmentation, Christian Chelson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Sleep is one of the body’s greatest and most basic needs. Chronic sleep loss (<6 hours a day) is linked to many cardiovascular issues, diabetes, and inflammatory conditions and has been shown to lower life expectancy. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a complication that causes sleep fragmentation in >8% of adults from developed countries, and many with OSA may be unaware of their condition. Having long-term OSA is linked to neuroinflammation caused by activated microglia in the brain, but the mechanics of this inflammation are not well understood. It is known that glucocorticoids, steroid hormones produced and released from the adrenal glands, have a suppressive effect on microglia. The purpose of this study is to explore the role that glucocorticoids have upon microglia activation induced by chronic sleep fragmentation (SF). C57BL/6J mice were …

The Importance Of Contrast Sensitivity, Color Vision, And Electrophysiological Testing In Clinical And Occupational Settings, Frances Silva

Theses & Dissertations

Visual acuity (VA) is universally accepted as the gold standard metric for ocular vision and function. Contrast sensitivity (CS), color vision, and electrophysiological testing for clinical and occupational settings are warranted despite being deemed ancillary and minimally utilized by clinicians. These assessments provide essential information to subjectively and objectively quantify and obtain optimal functional vision. They are useful for baseline data and monitoring hereditary and progressive ocular conditions and cognitive function. The studies in this dissertation highlight the value of contrast sensitivity, color vision, and cone specific electrophysiological testing, as well as the novel metrics obtained with potential practical clinical …

Utilizing Crispr Cas9 To Visualize Dopamine Receptors In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Lauren Michelle Velasquez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Dopamine (DA) is a neurotransmitter with imperative implications in many functions including movement, reward, and cognition. Studying the pathways of dopaminergic neurons at multiple levels allows us to understand the ways in which these systems can go wrong. We study dopamine in a model system such as the worm Caenorhabditis elegans because of its relatively simple and well-characterized nervous system. DA is involved in regulating chemosensory behaviors in worms. The purpose of this research project is to definitively answer the following question: Are the dopamine receptors DOP-1 and DOP-4 expressed in chemosensory neurons? Previous reporter assays show that neither of …

Category Learning Dlpfc Single-Dissociation By Fnirs, Tim Qiu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

It remains an open question whether modern neuroimaging clearly dissociates the Explicit system that learns by encoding rules, and the Implicit system that learns by encoding information-integration boundaries. Further, there are nearly no applications of fNIRS as a modality in studying category learning. We conduct two behavioural experiments to validate a carefully controlled categorization task intended to dissociate Explicit and Implicit systems. Then we apply fNIRS neuroimaging within-subjects to localize a neuroanatomical dissociation. We localized two effects to R DLPFC (1) a simple single-dissociation of higher activity in RB categorization, and (2) a negative relationship between overall task performance and …

Pilot Testing Of A Non-Gaming Cognitive Battery In Expert Esports Athletes, Allison J. Brager, Patrick Belling, Jason Sada, Jeffrey Osgood, Bradley Fawver, Michael Dretsch

NeuroSports

Introduction: The esports industry is rapidly expanding, making it imperative to identify common data elements of expert gamers for the purposes of performance optimization and enhancement. We aimed to measure cognitive performance in a convenient sample of expert esports athletes, as well as to determine if cognitive performance of these individuals could be further enhanced through a novel non-gaming neurocognitive test battery.

Methods: Elite esports athletes (n = 5) participated in a four-day cognitive and strength & conditioning program at the Sports Academy (Thousand Oaks, CA). Cognitive performance was assessed through five tasks of increasing cognitive load. Baseline …

Multiple Ways To Implement And Infer Sentience, Nicolas Rouleau, Michael Levin

Animal Sentience

Segundo-Ortin & Calvo’s (S&C’s) thorough review of “plant neurobiology” presents evidence supporting the possibility of plant sentience. They make a compelling case that plants anticipate, assess risk, cooperate, mimic, and pursue goals, as do their animal counterparts. S&C point out that there is a double standard: behavioural patterns associated with subjective experiences in humans are considered valid for inferring cognition in non-human animals but not in diverse other systems including plants. We argue that cognitive functions, including sentience, can potentially be achieved by very different systems and their disparate substrates. We offer some context from the basal cognition literature and …

Neural Mechanisms Of Resiliency And Susceptibility After Repeated Social Defeat, Christy R. Wayne

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Social defeat is a powerful experience leading to drastic changes in physiology and behavior, many of which are negative. For example, repeated social defeat in vertebrates results in reduced reproductive success, sickness, and behavioral abnormalities that threaten individual survival and species persistence. However, little is known about what neural mechanisms are involved in determining whether an individual is resilient or susceptible to repeated social defeat stress. I used a resident-intruder experiment in the African cichlid fish, Astatotilapia burtoni, to create and investigate the behavior and neural correlates of these two opposing groups. Resilient fish used both searching and freezing behaviors …

Recovery From Social Isolation In Drosophila: The Role Of Dopamine And The Autism-Related Gene Nlg3., Ryley T. Yost

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Within a group, individuals establish their preferred distance from each other, or social space, a form of social behaviour. The resulting distance depends on the exchange of social cues from others that needs to be perceived and integrated within the organism’s neural circuitry. In humans, social spacing can be impaired in neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. When organisms are subject to social isolation, profound changes in social behaviour are observed in a variety of species from insects to mammals, including social space. However, the genetic and molecular mechanisms modulating a behavioural response to isolation and possible recovery remain …

Effects Of Sex And Estrous Cycle On Intravenous Oxycodone Self-Administration And The Reinstatement Of Oxycodone-Seeking Behavior In Rats, Nicole M. Hinds, Ireneusz D. Wojtas, Corinne A. Gallagher, Claire M. Corbett, Daniel F. Manvich

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

The increasing misuse of both prescription and illicit opioids has culminated in a national healthcare crisis in the United States. Oxycodone is among the most widely prescribed and misused opioid pain relievers and has been associated with a high risk for transition to compulsive opioid use. Here, we sought to examine potential sex differences and estrous cycle-dependent effects on the reinforcing efficacy of oxycodone, as well as on stress-induced or cue-induced oxycodone-seeking behavior, using intravenous (IV) oxycodone self-administration and reinstatement procedures. In experiment 1, adult male and female Long-Evans rats were trained to self-administer 0.03 mg/kg/inf oxycodone according to a …