Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Rapamycin Inhibits Light-Induced Necrosome Activation Occurring In Wild-Type, But Not Rpe65-Null, Mouse Retina, Chunfeng Lu, Songhua Li, Minghao Jin

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

PURPOSE. Both photodamage and aberrant visual cycle contribute to disease progress of many retinal degenerative disorders, whereas the signaling pathways causing photoreceptor death remain unclear. Here we investigated the effects of intense photo-stress on (1) necrosome activation in wild-type and RPE65-null mice, (2) interaction of p62/Sequestosome-1 with the necrosome proteins, and (3) the effects of rapamycin on photodamage-induced necrosome activation and retinal degeneration in wild-type mice. METHODS. Dark-adapted rd12 mice and 129S2/Sv mice with or without rapamycin treatment were exposed to 15,000 lux light for different times. Expression levels and subcellular localization of proteins were determined through immunoblot and immunohistochemical …

Input From Torus Longitudinalis Drives Binocularity And Spatial Summation In Zebrafish Optic Tectum, Alexander L. Tesmer, Nicholas P. Fields, Estuardo Robles

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

Background: A continued effort in neuroscience aims to understand the way brain circuits consisting of diverse neuronal types generate complex behavior following sensory input. A common feature of vertebrate visual systems is that lower-order and higher-order visual areas are reciprocally connected. Feedforward projections confer visual responsiveness to higher-order visual neurons while feedback projections likely serve to modulate responses of lower-order visual neurons in a context-dependent manner. Optic tectum is the largest first-order visual brain area in zebrafish and is reciprocally connected with the torus longitudinalis (TL), a second-order visual brain area that does not receive retinal input. A functional role …

Effects Of Home-Based High-Intensity Interval Training Versus Continuous Walking On Cognition In Overweight And Obese Women, Kelsey C. Bourbeau

Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences ETDs

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to determine whether six weeks of home-based high-intensity interval training versus six weeks of moderate-intensity walking improves cognition, depression, and anxiety in women that are overweight or obese. Design: A randomized control trial design. Subjects: Twelve sedentary women characterized as overweight or obese were randomized into either a six-week home-based high-intensity interval training (HIIT, n = 6, 26.6 ± 8.9 years, 37.4 ± 4.9% body fat) group or a six-week moderate-intensity walking (Walk, n = 6, 22.5 ± 3.7 years, 40.2 ± 4.1% body fat) group. Main Measures: Pre- and post-intervention, participants …

Anatomical Analysis Of Olfactory Sensory Neuron Regeneration Via Glomerular Synaptic Activity Markers In Adult Mice, William Wamack

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The olfactory system is a great model for studying regeneration due to the olfactory epithelium’s regenerative capability which makes it a potential a source of neural stem cells. The olfactory epithelium presents three types of cells: sustentacular cells which provide support and act as glial supporting cells; olfactory sensory neurons that are in charge of detecting odorant molecules in the air; and the stem cells that generated the aforementioned cell types. Olfactory sensory neurons are constantly dying and being replaced by new neurons originating from the stem cells that lie at the base of the olfactory epithelium. We have used …

Med12 Is A Critical Regulator Of Neural Crest Lineage And Nervous System Myelination, Fatma Betul Aksoy Yasar

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

The Mediator complex (MED) is a multi-subunit protein complex integral to the eukaryotic transcription machinery. MED12 is a Cdk8- regulatory kinase module subunit directly implicated in human disease and is genetically altered in neurological disease and cancer. Numerous attempts at generating an in vivo system to study the role of Med12 failed due to embryonic lethality associated with germline or developmental disruption of Med12 gene. To understand the cellular and molecular processes associated with its role in disease, we generated multiple mouse models with targeted depletion of MED12 in distinct cellular lineages. Our genetically engineered models with induced and conditional …

Distinct Thalamic And Frontal Neuroanatomical Substrates In Children With Familial Vs. Non-Familial Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (Adhd), Rahman Baboli, Meng Cao, Jeffrey M. Halperin, Xiaobo Li

Publications and Research

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a highly prevalent, inheritable, and heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorder. Children with a family history of ADHD are at elevated risk of having ADHD and persisting its symptoms into adulthood. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of having or not having positive family risk factor in the neuroanatomy of the brain in children with ADHD. Cortical thickness-, surface area-, and volume-based measures were extracted and compared in a total of 606 participants, including 132, 165, and 309 in groups of familial ADHD (ADHD-F), non-familial ADHD (ADHD-NF), and typically developed children, respectively. Compared to controls, …

A Structural Examination Of The Connection Between The Amygdala And Nucleus Accumbens In Adolescents With Clinical Anxiety, Alyssa Griffith

Biological Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

The prominence of anxiety disorders in today’s general population is a major public health concern. Advancing research of the underlying pathophysiology of anxiety disorders can lead to the discovery of effective treatment interventions to treat the mental and physical symptoms of anxiety, and thus improve quality of life. This study aimed to examine two brain areas in the limbic and reward systems, the amygdala and Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc), and the structural white matter connection between them. This neural circuit assigns affective valence to environmental stimuli and motivates behavior to avoid potential harm. This study utilized diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) …

Individual Differences In Lpp Amplitude And Theta Power Predict Cue-Induced Eating During A Cued Food Delivery Task, Kyla Gibney

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Due to individual differences in the brain’s reward system, some individuals are more vulnerable than others to maladaptive, reward-seeking behaviors, such as substance use or compulsive eating. A body of research has demonstrated that individuals who attribute higher levels of incentive salience to reward-associated cues than to pleasant images (termed “C>P group” throughout) are more vulnerable to compulsive eating than those who attribute higher incentive salience to pleasant images than reward- associated cues (P>C group). Meanwhile, a separate body of research has demonstrated that cognitive control also regulates eating by enabling top-down attentional control. This dissertation aims to …

Morphine-Induced Tolerance Is Reduced By The Consumption Of A Ketogenic Diet, But Not A High Fat/High Carbohydrate Diet, Nina Beltran

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Opioid drugs like morphine are used medicinally for pain relief, but also have abuse liability that can lead to opioid use disorder (OUD), which contributes to nearly 70% of drug overdose deaths in the United States. Another rising health concern is the global obesity epidemic, and new evidence suggests that obesity and OUD might converge to impact individuals. For example, high body mass index (BMI) is associated with greater reports of pain among women. Further, opioid overdose risk is increased among individuals diagnosed with obesity, suggesting a potential relationship that might convey enhanced vulnerability among some populations. Given the high …

Region Detection & Segmentation Of Nissl-Stained Rat Brain Tissue, Alexandro Arnal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

People who analyze images of biological tissue rely on the segmentation of structures as a preliminary step. In particular, laboratories studying the rat brain delineate brain regions to position scientific findings on a brain atlas to propose hypotheses about the rat brain and, ultimately, the human brain. Our work intersects with the preliminary step of delineating regions in images of brain tissue via computational methods.

We investigate pixel-wise classification or segmentation of brain regions using ten histological images of brain tissue sections stained for Nissl substance. We present a deep learning approach that uses the fully convolutional neural network, U-Net, …

Markers Of Neuroinflammatory And Degenerative Processes In Professional Athletes With Traumatic Encephalopathy Syndrome, Brooke Conway Kleven

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction: The clinical criteria for Traumatic encephalopathy syndrome (ccTES) were developed to improve the diagnosis of Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This study aimed to determine whether there was an association between a clinical diagnosis of Traumatic encephalopathy syndrome (TES) and changes in serum biomarkers, balance, neuroimaging, and cognition among athletes in the Professional Athletes Brain Health Study (PABHS).Methods: Of the cohort, 130 professional fighters met age or retirement criteria and went to a consensus conference, with 52 fighters (40%) meeting the criteria for TES. A generalized linear model with generalized estimating equations was utilized to assess the odds of disease …

Dimensionality Of Natural Auditory Scene Perception: A Factor Analysis Study, Margaret A. Mcmullin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Theories of auditory and visual scene analysis suggest the perception of scenes relies on the identification and segregation of objects within it, resembling a detail-oriented processing style, but it is possible that a global-oriented process also occurs while evaluating auditory scenes. There is evidence for global properties that enable rapid recognition of visual scenes, even without recognizing the individual objects comprising the scene. It is our understanding that a similar line of research has not been explored in the auditory domain; therefore, we evaluated the contributions of high-level global and low-level acoustic information to auditory scene perception. A secondary aim …

Multilingualism And Memory: Investigating Possible Differences In The Abilities Of Monolingual And Multilingual College Students, Clara E. Barned

Honors Projects

This study investigated whether there is a difference in the memories of monolingual and multilingual undergraduate students using simple memorization tasks. There were 46 participants, 30 of which were monolingual (only knew one language) and 16 of which were multilingual (knew two or more languages). There was found to be no significant difference between the performance of the two groups, with the data generating a p-value of 0.557. This study further suggests related avenues of research and ways in which the study could be improved in the future.

Light And Temperature Entrainment Of Two Circadian-Driven Behaviors In The Flesh Fly Sarcophaga Crassipalpis, Raven Ragsdale

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Circadian rhythms dictate the timing of both once-in-a-lifetime adult emergence (eclosion) and daily locomotor activity rhythms in the flesh fly S. crassipalpis. Light cycles are considered the primary environmental time cue (zeitgeber), but the life history of S. crassipalpis suggests that temperature cycles (thermocycles) may also play a key role. This work evaluates the efficacy of thermocycling as a zeitgeber in S. crassipalpis. We found that shifting both light and temperature cycles of sufficient amplitude affect the phasing of eclosion and locomotor activity, but result in different patterns. Additional experiments suggest greater thermocycle sensitivity during the late metamorphic …

High Performing Athletes: Does Cannabis Use Enhance Performance?, Racine Ross

Scientific Kenyon: The Neuroscience Edition

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of Parkinson’S Disease-Associated Genes By Pumilio Proteins And Micrornas In The Human Neuroblastoma Cell Line Sh-Sy5y, Lisa J. Snoderly-Foster

Dissertations

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common age-related, neurodegenerative disease. A small collection of genes has been linked to PD, including SNCA encoding the protein alpha-synuclein that aggregates in Lewy bodies, a hallmark of PD. Overexpression of these genes can lead to pathogenesis, yet the regulatory mechanisms that control protein production of the genes are not fully understood. The SH-SY5Y neuronal cell line is a common model for the study of neurodegenerative diseases, including PD. However, SH-SY5Y cells are difficult to transfect, a process necessary for genetic manipulations and downstream analysis of RNA and protein. Herein, I describe the …

Early-Childhood Temperament Moderates The Prospective Associations Of Coping With Adolescent Internalizing And Externalizing Symptoms, Michele R. Smith, Krystal H. Parrish, Lisa Shimomaeda, Maureen Zalewski, Maya L. Rosen, Alexandra Rodman, Steven Kasparek, Makeda Mayes, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Katie A. Mclaughlin, Liliana J. Lengua

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

While appraisal and coping are known to impact adolescent psychopathology, more vulnerable or resilient responses to stress may depend on individual temperament. This study examined early life temperament as a moderator of the prospective relations of pre-adolescent appraisal and coping with adolescent psychopathology. The sample included 226 (62% female, 14–15 years) adolescents with assessments starting at 3 years of age. Adolescents were predominately White (12% Black 9% Asian, 11% Latinx, 4% Multiracial, and 65% White). Observed early-childhood temperament (fear, frustration, executive control, and delay ability) were tested as moderators of pre-adolescent coping (active and avoidant) and appraisal (threat, positive) on …

Females Exhibit Higher Glua2 Levels And Outperform Males In Active Place Avoidance Despite Increased Amyloid Plaques In Tgf344‑Alzheimer’S Rats, Osama Chaudry, Kelechi Ndukwe, Maria Figuiredo-Perira, Peter A. Serrano, Patricia Rockwell

Publications and Research

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that is most prevalent in females. While estrogen provides neuroprotection in females, sex mediated differences in the development of AD pathology are not fully elucidated. Therefore, comparing events between sexes in early-stage AD pathology may reveal more effective therapeutic targets of intervention. To address sex differences, we analyzed early-stage 9-month male and female TgF344-AD (Tg-AD) rats, an AD model carrying the APPswe and Presenilin 1 (PS1ΔE9) mutations that develops progressive age-dependent AD pathology similar to humans. Tg-AD females significantly outperformed Tg-AD males in the active place avoidance (aPAT) test that assesses hippocampal-dependent …

Impact Of Adolescent Social Isolation On Adult, Binge-Like Ethanol Consumption And Plasma Corticosterone In High-Alcohol-Preferring Mice, Eva Cullins

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Adolescent stress exposure increases the likelihood of alcohol misuse and alcohol use disorder (AUD) in adulthood; however, it is not clear how genetic and environmental factors interact to increase risk. This study examined how adolescent social isolation affects adult binge-like ethanol drinking and levels of the stress hormone corticosterone in male and female mice with a genetic predisposition toward high alcohol preference (HAP). Twenty-eight HAP mice were separated into group-housed (GH) and socially isolated (SI) conditions (n = 13, 13). Binge drinking was assessed using a drinking in the dark (DID) procedure. Blood samples were taken before DID and after …

Three-Month Recovery From Common Negative Physical, Functional, And Psychosocial Effects Among Individuals Infected With Covid-19: A Single Observational Group Repeated Measure Study, Hussain I. Aslan, Scotty J. Butcher Phd, Darcy D. Marciniuk Md, Corey R. Tomczak Phd

Journal for Sports Neuroscience

Purpose: We examined three-month recovery from common negative effects of COVID-19 infection on select physical, functional, and psychosocial parameters among infected individuals and their implications for rehabilitation programs. Methods: Twenty-one subjects participated in this study. Four standardized questionnaires were used to assess dyspnea, physical, and psychosocial variables in this study. The post-test survey was conducted 90 days following the pre-test survey. Wilcoxon-Signed Rank test and paired t-test were used to compare the variables data between pre- and post-testing time points. Results: Dyspnea scores decreased from (pre: 2 vs post:1, Z=-3.276, p=0.001, r=.50). Work performance scores increased from …