Neurosciences Commons^™

Foundations In Neuroscience Neu 101, Joanna Burkhardt

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Clinical Neurosciences Neu 320, Joanna Burkhardt

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Developing Drug Therapies: Cognitive Damage In Mice Following Brain Radiation, Rachel Yuska

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Pediatric brain cancer patients are at a high risk for radiation-induced cognitive impairment due to white matter changes in the brain. Half of six-month radiotherapy survivors develop significant changes in white matter. Previous research has shown that a mouse model can be used to show similar cognitive and behavioral deficits in human patients. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the effectiveness of two drug therapies, Donepezil and 3,3-Diindolylmethane (DIM), that could be used to either protect the brain from radiation injury or cure the cognitive injury and behavioral deficits that result from whole-brain irradiation. This project consisted of …

Advances In Management Of Neuropsychiatric Syndromes In Neurodegenerative Diseases, Jeffrey Cummings, Aaron Ritter, Kasia Rothenberg

School of Medicine Faculty Research

Purpose of Review Neuropsychiatric syndromes (NPS) are common in neurodegenerative disorders (NDD). This review describes the role of NPS in the diagnosis of NDD, criteria for the diagnosis of NPS, management of NPS, and agents in clinical trials for NPS. Recent Findings NPS play an increasingly important role in the diagnosis of NDD. Consensus diagnostic criteria have evolved for psychosis, depression, agitation, and apathy in NDD. With one exception—pimavanserin is approved for the treatment of hallucinations and delusions in Parkinson’s disease—there are no drugs approved by the FDA for treatment of NPS in NDD. Trials show that atypical antipsychotics reduce …

Further Analyses Of The Safety Of Verubecestat In The Phase 3 Epoch Trial Of Mild-To-Moderate Alzheimer’S Disease, Michael F. Egan, Yuki Mukai, Tiffini Voss, James Kost, Julie Stone, Christine Furtek, Erin Mahoney, Jeffrey L. Cummings, Pierre N. Tariot, Paul S. Aisen, Bruno Vellas, Christopher Lines, David Michaelson

Integrated Health Sciences Faculty Research

Background: Verubecestat, a BACE1 inhibitor that reduces Aβ levels in the cerebrospinal fluid of humans, was not effective in a phase 3 trial (EPOCH) of mild-to-moderate AD and was associated with adverse events. To assist in the development of BACE1 inhibitors, we report detailed safety findings from EPOCH. Methods: EPOCH was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled 78-week trial evaluating verubecestat 12 mg and 40 mg in participants with mild-to-moderate AD diagnosed clinically. The trial was terminated due to futility close to its scheduled completion. Of 1957 participants who were randomized and took treatment, 652 were assigned to verubecestat 12 mg, 652 …

Understanding The Axonal Response To Injury By In Vivo Imaging In The Mouse Spinal Cord: A Tale Of Two Branches., Binhai Zheng, Ariana O Lorenzana, Le Ma

Department of Neuroscience Faculty Papers

Understanding the basic properties of how axons respond to injury in the mammalian central nervous system (CNS) is of fundamental value for developing strategies to promote neural repair. Axons possess complex morphologies with stereotypical branching patterns. However, current knowledge of the axonal response to injury gives little consideration to axonal branches, nor do strategies to promote axon regeneration. This article reviews evidence from in vivo spinal cord imaging that axonal branches markedly impact the degenerative and regenerative responses to injury. At a major bifurcation point, depending on whether one or both axonal branches are injured, neurons may choose either a …

The Effect Of Spinal Cord Injury On Sexual Function., Casey J. Steadman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes severe neurological impairment with widespread motor, autonomic and sensory deficits, leading to a substantial quality of life impairment. The number of individuals with SCI increases by approximately 12,500 annually, and over 80% of individuals with SCI are males. SCI individuals rate sexual function as a top priority quality of life issue, and men with SCI likely suffer from sexual dysfunction, such as erectile and ejaculatory dysfunction, as well as infertility. Regardless of the high status of importance of sexual function, limited numbers of experimental studies in SCI animal models have focused on sexual function after …

Fear Learning And The Olfactory Bulb: Neural Correlates Of Behavioral Fear Generalization, Jordan Marie Ross

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

The exploration of how learning alters neural coding to guide behaviors remains fundamental to neuroscience. At the most basic level, the ability for organisms to flexibly adapt to changing environments and situations is paramount to biological success and often manifests in behavioral responses controlled by neural activity. For example, organisms must modify their behavior to defensive responses in the face of biological threat. Neural circuitry is involved in coordinating an initial defensive behavioral response but must undergo reorganization in order to reliably employ defensive responses in subsequent encounters based on a cue that signals imminent danger. One such form of …

Reduced Gabaergic Signaling At The Axon Initial Segment Decreases Vigilance State Transitioning, Austin John Boren

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Sleep is a highly regulated homeostatic process that is disrupted in an estimated 50-70 million Americans. Regulation of sleep depends upon coordinated signaling of multiple neurotransmitter systems. In particular, inhibitory gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) signaling is required to suppress wake-active brain regions in order to initiate and maintain sleep states. GABA type A receptors (GABAARs) are ionotropic receptors with subunit compositions uniquely enriched on subcellular domains of target cells. α2 subunit-containing GABAARs are the primary target of GABA released onto the axon initial segment (AIS), a site critical for phasing the oscillatory activity of cortical cells. α2-containing GABAARs have previously been …

Developmental Neurobiology Neu 201, Joanna Burkhardt

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Neuroscience Professional Development Neu 230, Joanna Burkhardt

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Short Amylin Receptor Antagonist Peptides Improve Memory Deficits In Alzheimer’S Disease Mouse Model, Rania Soudy, Ryoichi Kimura, Aarti Patel, Wen Fu, Kamaljit Kaur, David Westaway, Jing Yang, Jack Jhamandas

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Recent evidence supports involvement of amylin and the amylin receptor in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We have previously shown that amylin receptor antagonist, AC253, improves spatial memory in AD mouse models. Herein, we generated and screened a peptide library and identified two short sequence amylin peptides (12–14 aa) that are proteolytically stable, brain penetrant when administered intraperitoneally, neuroprotective against Aβ toxicity and restore diminished levels of hippocampal long term potentiation in AD mice. Systemic administration of the peptides for five weeks in aged 5XFAD mice improved spatial memory, reduced amyloid plaque burden, and neuroinflammation. The common residue SQELHRLQTY …

Anti-N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Encephalitis., Gregory Tanquary, William Fraser, Kaitlin M Bowers

Neuroscience Articles

Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA) encephalitis is an underrecognized encephalitis that may be mistaken for a wide variety of mental illnesses and causes of delirium. This syndrome is predominantly present in young females presenting with acute psychotic episodes, autonomic instability, and neurologic abnormalities. It is commonly associated with ovarian teratoma. Our case illustrates anti-NMDA encephalitis presenting in a young female with progressive mental status changes and neurologic abnormalities throughout her emergency department course. We review the investigative approach, diagnostic modalities, and treatment options in patient management. This case emphasizes the need for a high index of suspicion of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis when …

Cortical Beta Oscillations Are Associated With Motor Performance Following Visuomotor Learning, Svenja Espenhahn, Bernadette C.M. Van Wijk, Holly E. Rossiter, Archy O. De Berker, Nell D. Redman, Jane Rondina, Joern Diedrichsen, Nick S. Ward

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 The Authors People vary in their capacity to learn and retain new motor skills. Although the relationship between neuronal oscillations in the beta frequency range (15–30 Hz) and motor behaviour is well established, the electrophysiological mechanisms underlying individual differences in motor learning are incompletely understood. Here, we investigated the degree to which measures of resting and movement-related beta power from sensorimotor cortex account for inter-individual differences in motor learning behaviour in the young and elderly. Twenty young (18–30 years) and twenty elderly (62–77 years) healthy adults were trained on a novel wrist flexion/extension tracking task and subsequently retested …

Self-Directed Down-Regulation Of Auditory Cortex Activity Mediated By Real-Time Fmri Neurofeedback Augments Attentional Processes, Resting Cerebral Perfusion, And Auditory Activation, Matthew Sherwood, Jason G. Parker, Emily E. Diller, Subhashini Ganapathy, Kevin B. Bennett, Carlos R. Esquivel, Jeremy T. Nelson

Neuroscience, Cell Biology & Physiology Faculty Publications

In this work, we investigated the use of real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with neurofeedback training (NFT) to teach volitional down-regulation of the auditory cortex (AC) using directed attention strategies as there is a growing interest in the application of fMRI-NFT to treat neurologic disorders. Healthy participants were separated into two groups: the experimental group received real feedback regarding activity in the AC; the control group was supplied sham feedback yoked from a random participant in the experimental group and matched for fMRI-NFT experience. Each participant underwent five fMRI-NFT sessions. Each session contained 2 neurofeedback runs where participants completed …

Glucocorticoids And “Stress” Are Not Synonymous, Scott Macdougall-Shackleton

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Synopsis

Reference to glucocorticoids as “stress hormones” has been growing in prevalence in the literature, including in comparative and environmental endocrinology. Although glucocorticoids are elevated in response to a variety of stressors in vertebrate animals, the primary functions of glucocorticoids are not responding to stressors and they are only one component of complex suite of physiological and behavioral responses to stressors. Thus, the use of the short-hand phrase “stress hormone” can be misleading. Further, simply measuring glucocorticoids is not equivalent to measuring a stress response, nor is manipulating glucocorticoids equivalent to exposing an animal to a stressor. In this commentary …

An Eye Opener In Stroke: Mitochondrial Dysfunction And Stem Cell Repair In Stroke-Induced Retinal Ischemia, Hung Vu Thien Nguyen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stoke is a leading cause of disability and mortality across the globe, making it a global health crisis. However, treatments for stroke remain limited with narrow therapeutic time window. Visual impairment negatively affects patients’ quality of life. During stroke, the disruption in blood flow might affect both brain and eye resulting in cerebral and retinal ischemia. Currently, there is a lack of treatment option that targets both cerebral and retinal ischemia. Ischemic stroke pathology is complex and multiphasic. The ischemic event is followed by a secondary cascade of inflammatory cytokines exacerbating the initial focal injury and expanding into the penumbra. …

Mapping Reward Values To Cues, Locations, And Objects: The Influence Of Reward Associations On Visual Attention, Constanza De Dios

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous work has attempted to fit reward-driven attentional selection as being exogenous (stimulus-driven) or endogenous (goal-driven). However, recent work suggests that reward’s effects on attention depend on the type of stimulus feature that the motivational information is imparted during learning (incentive salience). If true, then reward should not be limited to solely impacting early perceptual or late categorization processes attention. The current study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to test the idea that reward’s effects on attention depend on the process that the reward information is embedded – early perceptual or late categorization. Results demonstrated reward-driven effects on perceptual representation when …

Circuit-Specific Control Of The Medial Entorhinal Inputs To The Dentate Gyrus By Atypical Presynaptic Nmdars Activated By Astrocytes, Iaroslav Savtchouk, Maria Amalia Di Castro, Rugina Ali, Hiltrud Stubbe, Rafael Lujan, Andrea Volterra

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Here, we investigated the properties of presynaptic N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (pre-NMDARs) at corticohippocampal excitatory connections between perforant path (PP) afferents and dentate granule cells (GCs), a circuit involved in memory encoding and centrally affected in Alzheimer’s disease and temporal lobe epilepsy. These receptors were previously reported to increase PP release probability in response to gliotransmitters released from astrocytes. Their activation occurred even under conditions of elevated Mg²⁺ and lack of action potential firing in the axons, although how this could be accomplished was unclear. We now report that these pre-NMDARs contain the GluN3a subunit conferring them low Mg^{2+ …}

Understanding The Neural Bases Of Implicit And Statistical Learning, Laura J. Batterink, Ken A. Paller, Paul J. Reber

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

© 2019 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. Both implicit learning and statistical learning focus on the ability of learners to pick up on patterns in the environment. It has been suggested that these two lines of research may be combined into a single construct of “implicit statistical learning.” However, by comparing the neural processes that give rise to implicit versus statistical learning, we may determine the extent to which these two learning paradigms do indeed describe the same core mechanisms. In this review, we describe current knowledge about neural mechanisms underlying both implicit learning and statistical learning, highlighting converging findings between …