Other Physiology Commons^™

Effects Of Mindfulness And Stress Management On Neurocardiovascular And Psychological Outcomes, Aditi P. Vyas

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

There has been a higher prevalence of developing anxiety due to frequent episodes of stress among adults in recent years. Chronic anxiety can contribute to the prevalence of elevated blood pressure and hypertension. High anxiety and stress also contribute to overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system which can be quantified by increased muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA). Sympathetic overactivation can lead to vasoconstriction and loss of arterial elasticity. Anxiety, MSNA, blood pressure, and arterial stiffness are all interconnected, thus studying these relationships is crucial to understand the underlying mechanisms for prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Non-pharmacological and mind-body …

Fertility Control Options For Management Of Free-Roaming Horse Populations, Ursula S. Bechert, John W. Turner Jr., Dan L. Baker, Douglas C. Eckery, Jason E. Bruemmer, Candace C. Lyman, Tulio M. Prado, Sarah R. B. King, Mark A. Fraker

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The management of free-roaming horses (Equus ferus) and burros (E. asinus) in the United States has been referred to as a “wicked problem” because, although there are population control options, societal values will ultimately determine what is acceptable and what is not. In the United States, free-roaming equids are managed by different types of organizations and agencies, and the landscapes that these animals inhabit vary widely in terms of access, size, topography, climate, natural resources, flora, and fauna. This landscape diversity, coupled with contemporary socioeconomic and political environments, means that adaptive management practices are needed to …

Relationship Of Winter Hair Coat Shedding Ability Of Purebred Angus Dams With Mineral Status, Apparent Forage Digestibility, Uterine Artery Hemodynamics, And Calf Growth And Development, Randy Hunter Burnett

Theses and Dissertations

Winter hair coat shedding ability in southern U.S. cattle production has previously been associated with differences in adjusted birth and weaning weights of calves from dams that shed by June or later (Gray et al., 2011; Cauble et al., 2019). This study was developed to research possible avenues of why these relationships exist with winter hair coat shedding ability. The primary objectives of the following experiments were to: 1) evaluate how mineral status relates to winter hair coat shedding ability, 2) evaluate how winter hair coat shedding ability relates to apparent digestibility of forage, 3) evaluate winter hair coat shedding …

The Art Of Amphibian Conservation: Linking In-Situ And Ex-Situ Populations Of Endangered Species Through Genome Banking, Isabella Joann Burger

Theses and Dissertations

Limited breeding success in captive breeding programs has necessitated the development of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) to preserve and increase genetic variation and population numbers of both captive and wild amphibian groups. ART has been shown to be successful in numerous anuran species, and current studies focus on the application of ART in ex-situ populations. The focus of this project is to show that linking in-situ and ex-situ amphibian populations through sperm cryopreservation, genome banking, and in-vitro fertilization is possible, with the goal of increasing gene diversity throughout groups in order to produce self-sustaining, wild populations in the future. Specific …

Boosting Brain Waves Improves Memory, Richard J. Addante, Mairy Yousif, Rosemarie Valencia, Constance Greenwood, Raechel Marino

Psychology Student Publications

Have you ever wanted to improve your memory? Or have you struggled to remember what you studied? Memory uses special patterns of activity in the brain. This experiment tested a new way to create brain wave patterns that help with memory. We wanted to see if we could improve memory by using lights and sounds that teach the brain waves to be in sync. People wore special goggles that made flashes of light and headphones that made beeping noises. This trained the brain through a process called entrainment. The entrainment put the brain in sync at a specific brain wave …

Diversity And Inclusion In The Stem Classroom, Sowmya Anjur

Faculty Publications & Research

A model of equity and diversity in STEM education has been developed, with applications to classroom pedagogy. This Equity and Excellence Model incorporates culturally responsive classrooms, based on diversity and equity minded practices. The diversity model was successfully implemented into a Science classroom and this model is still evolving to be more widespread to fit other classrooms and districts nationwide.

Anatomy And Physiology Preparatory Course Textbook (2nd Edition), Carlos Liachovitzky

Open Educational Resources

The goal of this preparatory textbook is to give students a chance to become familiar with some terms and some basic concepts they will find later on in the Anatomy and Physiology course, especially during the first few weeks of the course.

Organization and functioning of the human organism are generally presented starting from the simplest building blocks, and then moving into levels of increasing complexity. This textbook follows the same presentation. It begins introducing the concept of homeostasis, then covers the chemical level, and later on a basic introduction to cellular level, organ level, and organ system level. This …

Sickness Behaviors Across Vertebrate Taxa: Proximate And Ultimate Mechanisms, Patricia C. Lopes, Susannah S. French, Douglas C. Woodhams, Sandra A. Binning

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

There is nothing like a pandemic to get the world thinking about how infectious diseases affect individual behavior. In this respect, sick animals can behave in ways that are dramatically different from healthy animals: altered social interactions and changes to patterns of eating and drinking are all hallmarks of sickness. As a result, behavioral changes associated with inflammatory responses (i.e. sickness behaviors) have important implications for disease spread by affecting contacts with others and with common resources, including water and/or sleeping sites. In this Review, we summarize the behavioral modifications, including changes to thermoregulatory behaviors, known to occur in vertebrates …

Synthetic Viral Pyrogen Induces Behavioral Fever In Plethodon Glutinosus Salamanders, Nicholas Britt

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Behavioral fever is an essential coping mechanism across ectothermic phyla to aid in combating pathogenic threats. Ectotherms lack internal temperature regulation associated with fever in endotherms; thus, ectotherms can exhibit a behavioral fever response when immunocompromised to thermoregulate by moving to warmer locations. The salamander order Caudata, tend to be keystone species in their resident ecosystems through their role as secondary consumers of invertebrates to maintain the food chain. With growing interest about ecology and conservation of salamanders as species diversity declines, this study was designed to determine if salamanders use their environment to take advantage of behavioral fever. The …

The Relationship Between Sleep Duration And Optimism Levels In Generation Z Students, Anna Hassett

Honors College Theses

Generation Z is getting less sleep than ever and in conjunction, the quality of Generation Z’s sleep is decreasing. Inadequate sleep can increase the risk of depression, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and cognitive decline. Optimism is a subjective measure of worldview. In the field of positive psychology, optimism is believed to improve overall psychological and physical health. The main purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between sleep duration and reported levels of optimism in Generation Z students, aged 17 to 24. The hypothesis for this study is that optimism and duration of sleep will have a significantly …

Open Neuroscience Initiative, Austin Lim

College of Science and Health Full Text Publications

The Open Neuroscience Initiative is a free-to-use textbook

This project began as a means to overcoming the financial burden that face undergraduate neuroscience students when buying textbooks. By compiling and writing a completely free-to-access textbook that covers the foundations of a typical college introduction to neuroscience course, students would have one less obstacle to overcome in their educational career, allowing them to focus their valuable time and attention on learning rather than finances. To make this project a reality, I began with a humble tweet in May 2019 that managed to gain a tiny bit of traction among the neuroscience …

Lipid Metabolites As Energy Stores In Four Stingray Species, Lauren Moniz

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Assessing macronutrient transfer is important for estimating ecosystem health and structure. This nutrient transfer is facilitated through trophic position interactions and the consumption of biomass. Lipids are macronutrients that can be used to assess energy flow. Triglyceride (TAG) and free fatty acids (FFA) are important lipids that are obtained from diet and integrate into tissues. They are representative of energy stores and potential energy available for metabolic processes. In marine ecosystems, stingrays occupy the mesopredator niche, facilitating nutrient transfer from lower to higher trophic positions. Stingrays consume a variety of prey items ranging in lipid content, but how lipid metabolites …

Cold-Induced Metabolic Changes In Lean, Nag-1 Transgenic Mice, Rachel J. Davey

All Master's Theses

Obesity is a multifaceted metabolic disorder with severe worldwide public health consequences. While obesity can often be treated using diet and exercise, there are complex genetic interactions driving obesity that don’t always respond to such changes. One important research focus for addressing genetic factors is activating brown adipose tissue which increases thermogenesis, the process of burning stored fats to generate heat. Cold exposure is a known way to activate brown adipose tissue through b3-adrenergic signaling. This signaling pathway causes an upregulation of thermogenesis in brown adipocytes and beige adipocytes, which is white adipose tissue that “browns” and becomes metabolically active. …

Opioid Use Disorder: The Timeline For Medication Assisted Therapy, Alexander Cristofori

Capstone Showcase

Opioid Use Disorder is patterns of opioid use leading to withdrawal, giving up important life events in order to use opioids, and excessive time spent using opioids, to name a few diagnostic criteria. The clinical progression of the disorder involves periods of acute exacerbation and remission that are cyclic in nature. Treatment is most effective when it includes both pharmacological and psychosocial modalities, referred to as medication assisted therapy (MAT). Three drugs used commonly in MAT-based treatment for OUD from oldest to newest include Methadone, Buprenorphine-naloxone, and Naltrexone. Treatment program models that prioritize total abstinence from the addictive substance attached …

Resolving Variability In Size Structure In An Individual-Based Model For The North Pacific Krill, Euphausia Pacifica, Roxanne Robertson

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Individual-based models (IBMs) have emerged as a powerful tool for ecological research and are particularly well suited to studies of plankton ecology. In this thesis, I develop an IBM for the North Pacific krill, Euphausia pacifica, with the goal of replicating observed variability in size-structure in the northern California Current Ecosystem. Krill, and E. pacifica in particular, are central to the structure and function of the California Current Ecosystem. Their response to environmental forcing translates climate variability to higher trophic levels and underpins broader ecosystem responses. Recent observations indicate environmental and climate-related shifts in E. pacifica size distributions, which …

A Computational Model Relating Tissue Oxygen Consumption To Oxygen Delivery In A Krogh Cylinder Model Of Skeletal Muscle, Raghad A. Alqahtani

Theses and Dissertations

Oxygen transport from a capillary to skeletal muscle tissue is a complex process that involves convective and diffusive mechanisms to deliver adequate oxygen to meet tissue metabolic activities. Typically, oxygen uptake in tissue is set by oxygen demand, which is set by metabolic activity. The relationship between the oxygen consumption (VO₂) of an isolated perfused tissue and the rate of delivery of oxygen (QO₂) to the tissue has been a subject of interest to many investigators over the past century. Experiments have shown that there is a critical value of QO₂ below which tissue VO …

Sexually Dimorphic Oxytocin Receptor-Expressing Neurons In The Anteroventral Periventricular Nucleus Regulates Maternal Behavior, Kaustubh Sharma

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The neurohypophysial hormone oxytocin is involved in the regulation of social behaviors, including social recognition, pair bonding, and sex-specific parental behaviors in a variety of species. Oxytocin triggers these social behaviors by binding to oxytocin receptors (OXTR) in various parts of the brain. Oxytocin-induced sex-typical behavior, therefore, suggests a sexual dimorphic distribution of OXTR in the brain. In recent years, the oxytocin system in the brain received tremendous attention as a potential pharmacological target for treatment of many psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, autism spectrum disorders, and even sex-specific psychiatric disorder like postpartum depression (PPD). An important problem and a …

Effect Of Ambient Temperature On Recovery Of Surgically Instrumented Sprague-Dawley Rats, Gianna Mangone

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Based on current guidelines for housing rodents after surgical instrumentation, rodents may be housed at temperatures that hinder surgical recovery and cause thermal stress– room temperature (21°C) being one of them. Rodents are often housed at room temperature since this temperature is easy for humans to be caring for them. However, if recovering rodents are thermally stressed, experimental results will be confounded. To address this issue, Sprague-Dawley rats were surgically instrumented with radiotelemtry thermoprobes (Data Sciences, #TA-10F40) to monitor their core temperatures, then housed at one of five temperatures to assess the effect ambient temperature had on multiple aspects of …

The Autoimmune System: The Effect Of Physiological Stressors On Autoantibody Glycosylation And Fidelity Of Autoantibody Profiles, Rahil Kheirkhah

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

The presence of thousands of autoantibodies (aABs) in the human sera is typical, and therefore it is possible to identify an aAB profile for each individual. In the first part of this thesis, we will show the cerebrospinal fluid also exhibits an extraordinarily complex immunoglobulin G aAB profile that is composed of thousands of aABs. We show that the pattern of expression of individual aABs in CSF closely mimics that in the blood, indicative of a blood-based origin for CSF aABs. In addition, using longitudinal serum samples obtained over a span of nine years, we show remarkable stability in aAB …

Ctrp3 And Alcoholic Liver Disease In Female Mice, Callie Root

Undergraduate Honors Theses

C1q TNF Related Protein 3 (CTRP3), is a cytokine that is primarily secreted from adipose tissue, which classifies it as an adipokine. Our previous research has shown that CTRP3 prevents alcoholic fatty liver disease (ALD) in male mice. However, even when accounting for confounding factors such as absolute and relative alcohol intake, females are more sensitive to the effects of consumption compared to male mice. Therefore, the goal of this project was to determine whether CTRP3 prevented ALD in female mice. Methods: Female wild type (WT) and female CTRP3 transgenic over expressing (Tg) mice were fed an ethanol containing liquid …