Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Rediscovering The Axolotl As A Model For Thyroid Hormone Dependent Development, Anne Crowner, Shivam Khatri, Dana Blichmann, S. Randal Voss

Neuroscience Faculty Publications

The Mexican axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is an important model organism in biomedical research. Much current attention is focused on the axolotl's amazing ability to regenerate tissues and whole organs after injury. However, not forgotten is the axolotl's equally amazing ability to thwart aspects of tissue maturation and retain juvenile morphology into the adult phase of life. Unlike close tiger salamander relatives that undergo a thyroid hormone regulated metamorphosis, the axolotl does not typically undergo a metamorphosis. Instead, the axolotl exhibits a paedomorphic mode of development that enables a completely aquatic life cycle. The evolution of paedomorphosis allowed axolotls …

Body Mass Index In Multiple Sclerosis Modulates Ceramide-Induced Dna Methylation And Disease Course, Kamilah Castro, Achilles Ntranos, Mario Amatruda, Maria Petracca, Peter Kosa, Emily Y. Chen, Johannes Morstein, Dirk Trauner, Corey T. Watson, Michael A. Kiebish, Bibiana Bielekova, Matilde Inglese, Ilana Katz Sand, Patricia Casaccia

Advanced Science Research Center

Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) results from genetic predisposition and environmental variables, including elevated Body Mass Index (BMI) in early life. This study addresses the effect of BMI on the epigenome of monocytes and disease course in MS.

Methods: Fifty-four therapy-naive Relapsing Remitting (RR) MS patients with high and normal BMI received clinical and MRI evaluation. Blood samples were immunophenotyped, and processed for unbiased plasma lipidomic profiling and genome-wide DNA methylation analysis of circulating monocytes. The main findings at baseline were validated in an independent cohort of 91 therapy-naïve RRMS patients. Disease course was evaluated by a two-year longitudinal follow up …

Novel Calibrated Short Tr Recovery (Castrr) Method For Brain-Blood Partition Coefficient Correction Enhances Gray-White Matter Contrast In Blood Flow Measurements In Mice, Scott W. Thalman, David K. Powell, Ai-Ling Lin

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

The goal of the study was to develop a novel, rapid Calibrated Short TR Recovery (CaSTRR) method to measure the brain-blood partition coefficient (BBPC) in mice. The BBPC is necessary for quantifying cerebral blood flow (CBF) using tracer-based techniques like arterial spin labeling (ASL), but previous techniques required prohibitively long acquisition times so a constant BBPC equal to 0.9 mL/g is typically used regardless of studied species, condition, or disease. An accelerated method of BBPC correction could improve regional specificity in CBF maps particularly in white matter. Male C57Bl/6N mice (n = 8) were scanned at 7T using CaSTRR …

Sexual Assault On College Campuses: The Links Between Hegemonic Masculinity, College Sports, And Sexual Violence, Vanessa Iroegbulem

Sexual Ethics

This paper seeks to explore the social and neurobiological factors that shape men into sexual aggressors by rewarding violent behaviors. It will critique the exploitation and the commodification of male bodies through sports, namely football.

Breastfeeding And How It Affects Cognitive Development, Kylie Farris, Barbara Mcclaskey

Posters

If one was asked “which is better: breastfeeding or formula feeding?” the most common answer would be “breastfeeding.” This would be the answer 9 times out of 10. It is a known fact by a wide range of people, that in general, breastfeeding is the better option. Infants who are breastfed exclusively in the first six months of life tend to have better overall health outcomes than children that are fed only iron-fortified formula or a combination of the two. Therefore, it is likely that breastfeeding will indeed also improve cognitive developmental outcomes. That is the purpose of this study. …

Strong Neuron-To-Body Coupling Implies Weak Neuron-To-Neuron Coupling In Motor Cortex, Patrick A. Kells, Shree Hari Gautam, Leila Fakhraei, Jingwen Li, Woodrow L. Shew

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cortical neurons can be strongly or weakly coupled to the network in which they are embedded, firing in sync with the majority or firing independently. Both these scenarios have potential computational advantages in motor cortex. Commands to the body might be more robustly conveyed by a strongly coupled population, whereas a motor code with greater information capacity could be implemented by neurons that fire more independently. Which of these scenarios prevails? Here we measure neuron-to-body coupling and neuron-to-population coupling for neurons in motor cortex of freely moving rats. We find that neurons with high and low population coupling coexist, and …

The Role Of Ash1l During Human Neurodevelopment, Anna Bagnell

Senior Theses

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with defects in neuronal connectivity and are highly heritable. A significant proportion of ASD cases are of complex genetic etiology; complexity which might reflect the impact of gene-environment interactions. However, there is a gap in our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the gene-environment interaction in autism complex etiology. Genome wide association studies in large ASD cohorts identified high risk variants associated with autism in genes that regulate histone modifications and remodel chromatin. These findings highlight the relevance of chromatin regulatory mechanisms in the pathology of ASD. Changes in Histone H3 methylation have been …

Redefining Burnout: Exploring Common Conceptualizations And The Neurophysiology Of Chronic Stress To Establish An Integrated Allostatic Model, Danny A. Guzzi

Dissertations

Burnout is a widely researched stress-related phenomenon associated with numerous adverse outcomes for employees and organizations. Unfortunately, burnout is not well understood and research to this point has been flawed due to a lack of consensus on the definition, dimensionality, and context of the construct. Prevalent conceptualizations of burnout have been criticized for being arbitrarily developed without solid theoretical foundation and for failing to clearly distinguish burnout from depression or other work-related conditions such as compassion fatigue, secondary traumatization, and vicarious traumatization. The current project first examines relevant literature to identify commonalities among prevalent burnout conceptualizations. Then relevant stress research …

An Effective Model For Engaging Faculty And Undergraduate Students In Neuroscience Outreach With Middle Schoolers, Peter J. Vollbrecht, Riley S. Frenette, Andrew J. Gall

Faculty Publications

Engaging undergraduate students in science outreach events is critical for improving future communication between scientists and community members. Outreach events are opportunities for faculty and undergraduates to utilize active learning strategies to engage non-scientists in scientific questions and principles. Through careful design of outreach events, undergraduate students can practice science communication skills while reaching populations of the public that remain underserved and underrepresented in scientific fields. Here we describe a classroom outreach event designed to give a broad overview of the field of neuroscience to middle school students of all backgrounds by delivering the content in school, during school hours. …

The Generalization Of Fear Condition Between Viewed And Imagined Percepts, Lauryn Michelle Burleigh

LSU Master's Theses

Mental images can provoke intense emotional states (Holmes & Matthews, 2010). Imagery and perception have common neural and physiological mechanisms, including activation of the early visual areas (Albers et al., 2013). We tested the prediction that individuals can acquire fear to imagined percepts and if this fear transfers to viewing percepts, using fMRI and self-reported measures to determine participants’ fear. The participants completed a task in which they viewed and imagined two stimuli, and were fear conditioned when imagining the CS+. Participants are only told that mild electrical stimulation will be paired with one of the stimuli, but not which …

Proximal And Distal Control For Ligand Binding In Neuroglobin: Role Of The Cd Loop And Evidence For His64 Gating, Cécile Exertier, Lisa Milazzo, Ida Freda, Linda Celeste Montemiglio, Antonella Scaglione, Gabriele Cerutti, Giacomo Parisi, Massimiliano Anselmi, Giulietta Smulevich, Carmelinda Savino, Beatrice Vallone

Advanced Science Research Center

Neuroglobin (Ngb) is predominantly expressed in neurons of the central and peripheral nervous systems and it clearly seems to be involved in neuroprotection. Engineering Ngb to observe structural and dynamic alterations associated with perturbation in ligand binding might reveal important structural determinants, and could shed light on key features related to its mechanism of action. Our results highlight the relevance of the CD loop and of Phe106 as distal and proximal controls involved in ligand binding in murine neuroglobin. We observed the effects of individual and combined mutations of the CD loop and Phe106 that conferred to Ngb higher CO …

The Effects Of Bacterial Endotoxin Lps On Synaptic Transmission At The Neuromuscular Junction, Robin L. Cooper, Micaiah Mcnabb, Jeremy Nadolski

Biology Faculty Publications

The direct action of bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS) endotoxin was shown to enhance synaptic transmission and hyperpolarize the membrane potential at low doses, but block glutamatergic receptors and decrease observable spontaneous events at a high dosage. The dosage effects are LPS type specific. The hyperpolarization is not due to voltage-gated potassium channels or to activation of nitric oxide synthase (NOS). The effects are induced directly by LPS, independent of an immune response.

Forgotten Children & Bonds That Heal: The Critical Nature Of Attachment, August Ashbaker

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

Human attachment is one of the most critical factors in proper neurological and physiological development. Attachment is built through the mutuality of emotional impact, as well as the regular reception of physical touch. Infants and children who have been deprived of these vital necessities through the lacking initiatives of their caregivers—through neglect—display visible signs of its physiological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral impact. Research has found neglect to be the highest risk factor for permanent damage to brain development in comparison to other forms of complex trauma (i.e. chronic caregiver interpersonal trauma in childhood); it is also the most prevalent …

Effects Of Altered Gravity On The Central Nervous System Of Drosophila Melanogaster, Amber M. Paul, Siddhita Mhatre, Janani Iyer, Jhony A. Zavaleta, Ravikumar Hosamani

Publications

A comprehensive understanding of the effects of spaceflight and altered gravity on human physiology is necessary for continued human space exploration and long-term space habitation. Spaceflight includes multiple factors such as microgravity, hyper gravity, ionizing radiation, physiological stress, and disrupted circadian rhythms and these have been shown to contribute to pathophysiological responses that target immunity, bone and muscle integrity, cardiovascular and nervous systems. In terrestrial conditions, some of these factors can lead to cancer and neuroimmunological disorders. In this study, we used a well-established spaceflight model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, to assess spaceflight-associated changes in the nervous system. We hypothesize that …

Obstacle Negotiation And Dual-Tasking In People With A Unilateral Transtibial Amputation., Humberto Omana, Michael Payne, Ricardo Viana, Susan Winnifred Hunter

Western Research Forum

Background: Falls in people with a lower limb amputation (PLLAs) are common and most often occur while walking, resulting in physical and psychological consequences that adversely affect quality of life. Walking is a complex motor task requiring cognitive resources. Due to walking with a prosthesis, PLLAs report focussing on every step they take, indicating greater cognitive needs. However, cognitive resources are limited, and most of our everyday activities also involve the simultaneous performance of motor and cognitive tasks, known as dual-tasking. The inter-relationship between mobility, cognition and postural stability in PLLAs using a prosthesis is just starting to be understood. …

Strengthening Relationships Between Neural Ideals And Receptive Fields, Angelique Morvant

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal

Neural codes are collections of binary vectors that represent the firing patterns of neurons. The information given by a neural code C can be represented by its neural ideal J_C. In turn, the polynomials in J_C can be used to determine the relationships among the receptive fields of the neurons. In a paper by Curto et al., three such relationships, known as the Type 1-3 relations, were linked to the neural ideal by three if-and-only-if statements. Later, Garcia et al. discovered the Type 4-6 relations. These new relations differed from the first three in that they were …

The Drosophila Neuroblasts: A Model System For Human Ribosomopathies, Sonu Shrestha Baral

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation describes the use of Drosophila neuroblasts (NBs) to model human ribosomopathies; the overall goal is to understand why specific stem cell and progenitor cell populations are the primary targets in nucleolar stress as seen in the ribosomopathies. Chapter 1 provides an overview of relevant literature. Chapter 2 describes nucleolar stress in Drosophila neuroblasts as a model for human ribosomopathies. For this, we induce nucleolar stress by using the UAS-GAL4 system to express RNAi that depletes Nopp140 transcripts, and we also employ homozygous, CRISPR-Cas9-generated Nopp140 gene disruptions with a systemic null phenotype (Nopp140-/-). Embryonic lethality was observed …

"Where Was I?": Linguistic Reprocessing In Distracted Reading, Katrina Hillam

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines the impact of repeated auditory and task-oriented distractors on linguistic processing. Impact was measured through eye tracking software recording first fixation duration, gaze duration, and total time spent on distractor words. This study found consistent significant difference only in the total time category, suggesting that the processing stage most impacted by distraction is global context—our awareness of how a word fits in to the paragraph at large. Participants were skilled at regaining reading speed after distraction, showing no overall impairment for other processing levels. This phenomenon could be dangerous for student comprehension, as reading speed will be …

The Effects Of Huntingtin-Lowering: What Do We Know So Far?, William F. Kaemmerer, Richard C. Grondin

Neuroscience Faculty Publications

Therapies targeting mutant huntingtin DNA, mRNA, and protein have a chance at becoming the first disease-modifying treatments for Huntington’s disease, a fatal inherited neurodegenerative disorder for which only symptom management treatments are available today. This review focuses on evidence addressing several key questions pertinent to huntingtin-lowering, ranging from the functions of wild-type huntingtin (wtHTT) that may be disrupted by huntingtin-lowering treatments through the various ways huntingtin can be lowered, the tolerability of wtHTT-lowering in mice and primates, what has been found in the Ionis Pharmaceutical safety trial of a huntingtin-lowering therapy, and to the question of how much mutant huntingtin …

The Intersection Of Neuroscience And Art, Matilde Mendes Pinto

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The Interaction of Neuroscience and Art will give you an insight into how they interact with each other by analyzing visual art, musical art and theatrical art.