Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Pain And Other Feelings In Humans And Animals, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio

Animal Sentience

Evidence from neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neuropsychology suggests that the experience of feelings in humans does not depend exclusively on structures of the cerebral cortex. It does not seem warranted to deny the possibility of feeling in animals on the grounds that their cerebral cortices are not comparable to those of humans.

Where Is Pain In The Brain?, Marshall Devor

Animal Sentience

Key argues that fish cannot experience pain based on (1) brain imaging in humans, (2) consequences of lesions and (3) direct brain stimulation. Imaging indeed shows that pain-relevant signals reach the cortex, but not that they underlie the subjective experience of pain. Lesions and stimulation data are more to the point, but Key paints an idiosyncratic and misleading picture of their effects. S1 and S2 ablation does not eliminate evoked or spontaneous pain, although there may be up- or down-modulation. Likewise, stimulation of pain-associated cortical areas rarely induces pain, and pain almost never occurs at the onset of epileptic seizures. …

Fish Pain: Would It Change Current Best Practice In The Real World?, B. K. Diggles

Animal Sentience

Much of the “fish pain debate” relates to how high the bar for pain should be set. The close phylogenetic affinities of teleosts with cartilaginous fishes which appear to lack nociceptors suggests caution should be applied by those who seek to lower the bar, especially given the equivocal and conflicting nature of the experimental data currently available for teleosts. Nevertheless, even if we assume fish “feel pain,” it is difficult to see how current best practice in aquaculture would change. This is because of the need to avoid stress at all stages of the rearing process to optimize health, growth …

Falsifying The Null Hypothesis That “Fish Do Not Feel Pain", Brian Key

Animal Sentience

The reader of Animal Sentience may surmise that because the weight of the commentaries on my target article, “Why fish do not feel pain,” is leaning towards not supporting my argument, it follows that the premise "fish do not feel pain" is incorrect. However, science does not prevail by popular opinion. History is plagued with numerous (and often widely accepted) examples of biological phenomena being explained by mysterious forces. In the absence of a mechanistic understanding, the many different guises of vitalism (the principle that life involves a vital energy) are often invoked to explain the unknown. Spurious …

Law & Neuroscience: What, Why, And Where To Begin, Owen D. Jones, Jeffrey D. Schall, Francis X. Shen

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This provides the Summary Table of Contents and Chapter 1 of our coursebook “Law and Neuroscience” (forthcoming April 2014, from Aspen Publishing). Designed for use in both law schools and beyond, the book provides user-friendly introductions, as well as detailed explorations, of the many current and emerging issues at the intersection of law and neuroscience.

One part of the book lays general foundations by exploring the relationships between law and science generally, and by comparing the views from law and from neuroscience regarding behavior and responsibility. A later part explains the basics of brain structure and function, the methods for …

Parsing The Behavioral And Brain Mechanisms Of Third-Party Punishment, Owen D. Jones, Matthew Ginther, Richard J. Bonnie, Morris B. Hoffman, Francis X. Shen, Kenneth W. Simons, Rene Marois

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The evolved capacity for third-party punishment is considered crucial to the emergence and maintenance of elaborate human social organization and is central to the modern provision of fairness and justice within society. Although it is well established that the mental state of the offender and the severity of the harm he caused are the two primary predictors of punishment decisions, the precise cognitive and brain mechanisms by which these distinct components are evaluated and integrated into a punishment decision are poorly understood.

Using a brain-scanning technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we implemented a novel experimental design to …

Axon Initial Segment Loss Is Not Observed In The Hippocampus Of A Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis Mouse Model, Praveen Mohanraju

UROP Posters

The axon initial segment (AIS) is fundamental for neuronal communication and action potential initiation, a characteristic which has been shown to be disrupted in inflammatory diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Previous work from our lab has shown AIS breakdown in layer 5 of the cortex in a mouse model of MS known as experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Moreover, it was shown that AIS breakdown was independent of demyelination but temporally correlated with microglial inflammatory reactivity. In order to determine if this pathology is specific to the cortex or affects other regions of the brain, we exploited these EAE induced …

Mental Health Help-Seeking Intention And Organizational Climate In A Population Of Military Service Members, Mishaw Tyron Cuyler

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Historically, psychological effects of war such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have been understated and misdiagnosed throughout the world. Military members that displayed symptoms of PTSD such as anxiety, depression, and sadness were thought to lack the strength and courage necessary to be a soldier. As a result, many soldiers suffering from symptoms of PTSD would suffer in silence and not seek the requisite help for mental health care. This Dissertation examines the mental health help-seeking intention of U.S. military service members using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Additionally, this Dissertation considers the effects that leadership support climate …

The Role Of The Dopamine/Ecdysteroid Receptor Dopecr In Ethanol Induced Behavioral Disinhibition, Gissel Pryscilla Aranda

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ethanol, a main active ingredient of alcoholic beverages, exerts numerous effects on behavior through its interaction with diverse membrane and signaling molecules and effector cells. The effects include lack of motor control, behavioral disinhibition, tolerance, sensitization and addiction. In particular, behavioral disinhibition is typically associated with heavy drinking and can lead to detrimental consequences such as car accidents, violent rages, risky sexual behavior and illegal substance abuse. This research aimed to clarify the neural elements and cellular mechanisms underlying behavioral disinhibition induced by ethanol. The neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) is implicated in ethanol-induced behavioral disinhibition (Van Gaalen et al., 2006). To …

Macro- And Mesoscale Analysis Of Connections Between The Cingulate Region And The Lateral Hypothalamic Area: Tracer Co-Injection And Chemoarchitectural Studies In The Adult Male Rat, Kenichiro Negishi

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Hypothalamic research since the middle of the 20th century shaped the view that the lateral hypothalamic area (LHA) has a central role in controlling appetitive drives. The LHA is anatomically positioned to receive converging axonal inputs which relay information about the body's metabolic state as well as descending projections from the cerebral hemispheres, which encode cognitive and emotional states that influence feeding. Cerebral inputs are capable of initiating feeding despite the presence of competing satiety signals. Recent work has shown that medial prefrontal cortical areas can drive feeding in sated animals, possibly by engaging hypothalamic hypocretin/orexin (H/O)-expressing neurons, which are …

Characterization Of A Putative Glycinergic Nigropallidal Pathway In The Rodent Brain, Rosalia Ortega

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Glycinergic neurotransmission is essential for the function of sensory and motor systems associated with pain transmission and rhythmic motor patterns. Yet, the way glycinergic circuits modulates motor systems via the globus pallidus external (GPe) is not clear. The cyto-architecture of glycinergic circuitry is poorly understood and most work has focused in brainstem areas. It is believed that glycinergic neurons are mainly interneurons regulating local circuits. However, it is now becoming clear that they are also projection neurons, constituting true neuronal circuits. At the glycinergic synapse, termination of neurotransmission and recycling of glycine is regulated by two transporters, glycine transporter 1 …

Characterization Of A Medial Prefrontal Cortex - Caudal Pontine Reticular Nucleus Relevant To Sensorimotor Gating, Sebastian Andres Pace

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Focusing attention depends on filtering irrelevant sensory stimuli to prevent brain overload. This ability of our brain to block or “gate” such information is a pre-attentive neuronal mechanism known as sensorimotor gating (SG). SG abnormalities have been linked to a variety of psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia. Initial studies related to the SG circuitry were performed more than four decades ago (Graham, 1975). However, SG is still the subject of numerous current studies involving both humans and animal models. Despite these research efforts, knowledge gaps persist regarding the identity neurons involved, their locations in different brain regions and their precise functional …

Examination Of The Rewarding Effects Of Nicotine And The Negative Effects Of Withdrawal In A Rodent Model Of Diabetes, Joseph Allan Pipkin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Introduction: The present study utilized a rodent model of diabetes to examine the rewarding effects of nicotine as well as negative affective states and physical signs of withdrawal from this drug. Methods: Separate groups of rats received systemic administration of vehicle or streptozotocin (STZ), which destroys the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas and elevates plasma glucose levels. Place conditioning procedures were utilized to compare the rewarding effects of various doses of nicotine (conditioned place preference; CPP) and the aversive effects of nicotine withdrawal (conditioned place aversion; CPA) in vehicle- and STZ-treated rats. CPA and physical signs of withdrawal were …

Echoes, Sarah Abigail Adleman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

When I was sixteen, my mother was killed one evening while running on the bayou behind our house in Houston. The man, who is now on Death Row in Texas, beat, raped, and then strangled her to death. Writer Mary Cappello says of Creative Nonfiction, to compose discursively requires that we turn in the direction of the discourses that have made us who we are rather than start from a place of what we think happened to us in the course of our lives. She goes on further to say, Creative nonfiction appreciates the power of prepositions. Instead of writing …

The Viability Of High-Frequency Oscillation Analysis In Eeg Signals For Seizure Prediction, Bryan David Kern

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Seizure prediction is a decades-old research problem that has yet to reach any satisfying conclusions. Many studies have tackled the problem with varying results, but there has yet to be any major breakthroughs that define the direction of all future research. However, a promising, new predictor may have presented itself in recent years in the form of high frequency oscillations (HFOs). With the discovery of HFOs (80 - 800 Hz) as a biomarker for epilepsy, new interest has been placed in studying the high frequency content of EEGs to find a possible link between epilepsy and HFOs. In this paper, …

Adams As Potential Regulators Of Stem Cell Quiescence In The Olfactory Epithelium, Elaine Elizabeth Orendorff

Master's Theses

I demonstrate that a member of the protein family A Disintegrin and Metalloprotease (ADAM), ADAM23, is expressed in the olfactory epithelium (OE) and may inhibit neural progenitor cell (NPC) proliferation. I generated a list of ten gene candidates and selected ADAM23 for further study, based on its conserved protein structure and accumulating evidence for its role in cell cycle progression of proliferative cells. I next determined ADAM23 protein localization using immunohistochemistry and measured both mRNA and protein expression post-lesion with RT-qPCR and Western blot. ADAM23 is expressed in multiple cell types of the OE, including glial Sustentacular (Sus) cells and …

Neuroscience And Behavioral Genetics In Us Criminal Law: An Empirical Analysis, Nita A. Farahany

Faculty Scholarship

The goal of this study was to examine the growing use of neurological and behavioral genetic evidence by criminal defendants in US criminal law. Judicial opinions issued between 2005–12 that discussed the use of neuroscience or behavioral genetics by criminal defendants were identified, coded and analysed. Yet, criminal defendants are increasingly introducing such evidence to challenge defendants’ competency, the effectiveness of defense counsel at trial, and to mitigate punishment.

Contrast Response Functions Of On- And Off-Cells In Motion-Induced Blindness, Megan E. Lusignan

Honors Theses and Capstones

Motion-Induced Blindness (MIB) is the perceived, spontaneous disappearance of a salient target when it is viewed in the presence of a moving mask, and is believed to be controlled by extrastriate area 5 (Donner et al., 2008). The ON and OFF pathways in the human visual system are responsible for the detection of increments and decrements of light, respectively. The OFF pathway is more sensitive to decrements than the ON pathway is to increments before the middle layers of V1. However, after this point, the sensitivities are comparable in strength. Past experiments in this lab have shown that the ON …

Ultrasonic Vocalizations As A Predictor Of Resilience To Intermittent Swim Stress-Induced Anxiety: An Investigation Of Re-Exposure Effects, Yandan Wang, Robert C. Drugan, Nathaniel Stafford

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Pain In Parallel, Peter Godfrey-Smith

Animal Sentience

Key's (2016) arguments against the view that fish feel pain can be shown to be fallacious by considering some damage-related behaviors in invertebrates. Pain may have different neural bases in different organisms, so the absence in fish of the cortical structures that might underlie pain in mammals does not settle the question of fish pain.