Neurosciences Commons^™

Metabolic Syndrome Among Schizophrenic Patients: A Comparative Cross-Sectional Study In The Middle Belt Of Ghana, Angela Owusu-Ansah, Anto Berko Panyin, Christian Obirikorang, Christian Agyare, Emmanuel Acheampong, Simon Kwofie, Enoch Odame Anto, Emmanuella Nsenbah Batu

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The study determined the prevalence ofMetS in patients with schizophrenia at the Psychiatric Unit of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Kumasi, Ghana. This comparative cross-sectional study recruited 348 schizophrenic patients comprising 236 antipsychotic-treated and 112 newly diagnosed treatment-na¨ıve patients. The MetS prevalence was assessed based on World Health Organization (WHO), International Diabetes Federation (IDF), and the National Cholesterol Education Programme, Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATP III) criteria. The overall prevalence of MetS was 14.1%, 20.4%, and 23.6% using NCEP ATP III, WHO, and IDF criteria, respectively, compared to 7.8%, 3.9%, and 2.2% reported in the generalGhanaian population.The prevalence …

Investigating The Relationship Between Sulcogyral Patterns And Structural And Functional Connectivity Metrics In The Orbitofrontal Cortex, Bethany M. Blass

Honors Theses

Located within the frontal lobe, the human orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is widely known for its roles in sensory integration, emotion processing, decision-making, and goal-directed behaviors. Atypical structural organization of the OFC may explain atypical social or motivational behaviors displayed by individuals with brain disorders, such as bipolar disorder patients (BP).

The human brain can be imaged using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to reveal interesting aspects of the underlying brain architecture. This brain is composed of different tissue types, including gray and white matter, as well as various morphological features, including sulci & gyri. Within the OFC, the sulci can be …

On The Future Of Antidepressant Treatments: Targeting Neurotrophic Factors And Plasticity, Stephen W. White

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For 60-plus years the explanatory model for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) has been the monoamine theory, which states that low levels of monoamine neurotransmitters or alterations in their post-synaptic receptors are responsible for depressive symptoms. Drugs designed to elevate synaptic monoamine levels have remained the first line of pharmacotherapy prescribed by clinicians for MDD patients. However, these drugs have shortcomings. Despite evidence that current antidepressants elevate synaptic monoamine levels within hours of administration, these drugs require four to six weeks of daily administration before symptom relief appears. Furthermore, approximately half of patients taking typical antidepressants never achieve full symptom relief. …

Under The Influence: An Interdisciplinary Approach To Psychedelics, Jody Roun

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

The following research will outline the effects of psychedelics from an interdisciplinary approach, which is to say that I will explore the neuroscience behind psychedelic drugs and how it relates to creativity, as a primary focus, while examining the role of additional points included along the way. The goal of this research, is to gain a deeper understanding of psychedelics and truly decipher what it means to be under the influence, as the most important goal of this human existence is to achieve understanding. The aforementioned is a point that great minds like Albert Einstein and Humphry Osmond impressed on …

Transport Of Bmaa Into Neurons And Astrocytes By System XC-, Rebecca Albano, Doug Lobner

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

The study of the mechanism of β-N-methylamino-l-alanine (BMAA) neurotoxicity originally focused on its effects at the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor. In recent years, it has become clear that its mechanism of action is more complicated. First, there are certain cell types, such as motor neurons and cholinergic neurons, where the dominate mechanism of toxicity is through action at AMPA receptors. Second, even in cortical neurons where the primary mechanism of toxicity appears to be activation of NMDA receptors, there are other mechanisms involved. We found that along with NMDA receptors, activation of mGLuR5 receptors and effects on the …

The Role Of Neurokinin Receptors And Satellite Glial Cells In Herpes Simplex Virus 1 Latency, Andrew Jerome

Wayne State University Dissertations

The ability of herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) to establish a lifelong infection in neurons of the trigeminal ganglion (TG) make it a constant public health threat. Viral reactivation from its latent state is currently the leading cause of viral induced blindness in the United State, as well as the leading cause of herpes simplex encephalitis. Unfortunately, how the virus is able to both establish and maintain its latent state in the TG is not well understood. The purpose of this work was to better understand how neuropeptide signaling through neurokinin receptors, as well as how satellite glial cells (SGCs) …

Characterization Of Language Cortex Activity During Speech Production And Perception, Hassan Baker

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Millions of people around the world suffer from severe neuromuscular disorders such as spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and others. Many of these individuals cannot perform daily tasks without assistance and depend on caregivers, which adversely impacts their quality of life. A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is technology that aims to give these people the ability to interact with their environment and communicate with the outside world. Many recent studies have attempted to decode spoken and imagined speech directly from brain signals toward the development of a natural-speech BCI. However, the current progress has not reached practical …

Microrna Cluster Mir199a/214 Are Differentially Expressed In Female And Male Rats Following Nicotine Self-Administration, Steven T. Pittenger, Victoria L. Schaal, Dalia Moore, Rahul S. Guda, Sneh Koul, Sowmya V. Yelamanchili, Rick A. Bevins, Gurudutt Pendyala

Journal Articles: Pharmacology & Experimental Neuroscience

Previous research has established sex differences associated with nicotine intake, however a significant gap in knowledge remains regarding the molecular mechanisms that govern these differences at the transcriptional level. One critical regulator of transcription are microRNAs (miRNAs). miRNAs are a family of non-coding RNAs that regulate an array of important biological functions altered in several disease states, including neuroadaptive changes within the brain associated with drug dependence. We examined the prefrontal cortex (PFC) from male and female Sprague-Dawley rats following self-administration (22 days) of nicotine or yoked saline controls using next generation RNA-Sequencing (RNA-Seq) technology and found an array of …

Proof-Of-Concept Testing Of A Real-Time Mhealth Measure To Estimate Postural Control During Walking: A Potential Application For Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries, Hyunhwa Lee, Sunchul Lee, Laura Salado, Jonica Estrada, Jacob White, Venkatesan Muthukumar, Szu-Ping Lee, Sambit Mohapatra

Nursing Faculty Research

Background: Most individuals with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) experience post-injury deficits in postural control. Currently available measures of postural control are lab-based or supervised, which may hinder timely symptom assessment for individuals with mTBI, including Asian populations, who do not seek initial screening post-injury. In this proof-of-concept testing study, we introduce a real-time mobile health (mHealth) system to measure postural control during walking. The proposed mHealth system can be used for home-based symptom assessment and management of mTBI. Methods: In our proposed mHealth system, a smartwatch, a smartphone, and a cloud server communicate to measure, collect, and store body …

17Β-Estradiol Potentiates The Reinstatement Of Cocaine Seeking In Female Rats: Role Of The Prelimbic Prefrontal Cortex And Cannabinoid Type-1 Receptors, Elizabeth M. Doncheck, Luke A. Urbanik, Margot C. Debaker, Laura M. Barron, Gage T. Liddiard, Jennifer J. Tuscher, Karyn M. Frick, Cecilia J. Hillard, John Mantsch

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Clinical observations imply that female cocaine addicts experience enhanced relapse vulnerability compared with males, an effect tied to elevated estrogen phases of the ovarian hormone cycle. Although estrogens can enhance drug-seeking behavior, they do not directly induce reinstatement on their own. To model this phenomenon, we tested whether an estrogen could augment drug-seeking behavior in response to an ordinarily subthreshold reinstatement trigger. Following cocaine self-administration and extinction, female rats were ovariectomized to isolate estrogen effects on reinstatement. Although neither peak proestrus levels of the primary estrogen 17β-estradiol (E2; 10 μg/kg, i.p., 1-h pretreatment) nor a subthreshold cocaine dose …

Cone Phosphodiesterase-6Γ’ Subunit Augments Cone Pde6 Holoenzyme Assembly And Stability In A Mouse Model Lacking Both Rod And Cone Pde6 Catalytic Subunits, Wen-Tao Deng, Saravanan Kolandaivelu, Astra Dinculescu, Jie Li, Ping Zhu, Vince A. Chiodo, Visvanathan Ramamurthy, William W. Hauswirth

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Rod and cone phosphodiesterase 6 (PDE6) are key effector enzymes of the vertebrate phototransduction pathway. Rod PDE6 consists of two catalytic subunits PDE6α and PDE6β and two identical inhibitory PDE6γ subunits, while cone PDE6 is composed of two identical PDE6α’ catalytic subunits and two identical cone-specific PDE6γ’ inhibitory subunits. Despite their prominent function in regulating cGMP levels and therefore rod and cone light response properties, it is not known how each subunit contributes to the functional differences between rods and cones. In this study, we generated an rd10/cpfl1 mouse model lacking rod PDE6β and cone PDE6α’ subunits. Both rod and …

Mechanisms And Consequences Of Epigenetic Inheritance Following Parental Preconception Alcohol Exposure, Annadorothea Asimes

Dissertations

Recent advances in genomics research have revealed that preconception behaviors and experiences of mothers and fathers, including diet, environmental toxicants, and drug abuse, can impact future offspring through epigenetic mechanisms. This means that the risky behaviors of young people, such as the extremely popular practice of binge drinking, have potentially far-reaching consequences for generations to come. While there has been considerable research into fetal alcohol exposure and parental alcoholism, there has yet to be sufficient investigation into the mechanism of epigenetic inheritance or the functional consequences of parental preconception binge pattern alcohol abuse. The hypothesis tested herein is that parental …

Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 2 Activation: Computational Predictions And Experimental Validation, Amr Ellaithy

Theses and Dissertations

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest family of signaling proteins in animals and represent the largest family of druggable targets in the human genome. Therefore, it is of no surprise that the molecular mechanisms of GPCR activation and signal transduction have attracted close attention for the past few decades. Several stabilizing interactions within the GPCR transmembrane (TM) domain helices regulate receptor activation. An example is a salt bridge between 2 highly conserved amino acids at the bottom of TM3 and TM6 that has been characterized for a large number of GPCRs. Through structural modeling and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, …

The Contribution Of Sarm1 To Axonal Degeneration In Cns Inflammatory Disorders, Daniel C. Njoku

Theses and Dissertations

BACKGROUND: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that results in demyelination and axonal loss. Efficiently targeting mechanisms of axonal degeneration in MS has the potential to reduce disability but remains an unmet need. Prior research has identified the protein sterile alpha and TIR motif containing 1 (SARM1) as a critical factor that promotes axonal destruction in the program of axonal degeneration known as Wallerian degeneration. SARM1 inactivation reduces axonal degeneration in a variety of contexts including traumatic and toxic injury, but it remains unknown to what extent SARM1 is involved in axonal degeneration …

A Single-Subject Evaluation Of Facilitated Communication In The Completion Of School-Assigned Homework, Nancy A. Meissner

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Few projects have combined quantitative and qualitative approaches in the analysis of facilitated communication as did this study of a 17-year-old nonverbal autistic male responding to homework questions using facilitated communication. Findings were consistent with prior studies: Tim was minimally able to produce correct responses independent of facilitator influence under controlled conditions; whereas, at least some typed messages in the spontaneous narratives appear to be his authentic communications independent of facilitator control.

An overview of the history of facilitated communication, its related research, and the heated debates around its validity are presented. Disparate findings between controlled and non-controlled circumstances are …

The Effect Of Rare Variants In Trem2 And Pld3 On Longitudinal Cognitive Function In The Wisconsin Registry For Alzheimer's Prevention, Corinne D. Engelman, Burcu F. Darst, Murat Bilgel, Eva Vasiljevic, Rebecca L. Koscik, Bruno M. Jedynak, Sterling C. Johnson

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent studies have found an association between functional variants in TREM2 and PLD3 and Alzheimer's disease (AD), but their effect on cognitive function is unknown. We examined the effect of these variants on cognitive function in 1449 participants from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention, a longitudinal study of initially asymptomatic adults, aged 36–73 years at baseline, enriched for a parental history of AD. A comprehensive cognitive test battery was performed at up to 5 visits. A factor analysis resulted in 6 cognitive factors that were standardized into z scores (∼N [0, 1]); the mean of these z scores was …

Possible Breakdown Of Dopamine Receptor Synergism In A Mouse Model Of Huntington's Disease, Samantha F. Kennedy

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The model of basal ganglia function proposed by Albin, Young and Penney (1989) describes two anatomically independent motor pathways, the direct and indirect. However, under normal conditions striatal dopamine (DA) is required for the expression of motor behavior, and DAergic control of the two pathways (via D1 and D2 receptors, respectively) is dependent on co-activation. We tested for a possible breakdown of D1/D2 synergism using transgenic R6/1 mice bearing the human huntingtin allele (Htt). Motor stereotypy, observed prior to the onset of HD-related symptoms, was rated on a 5-point scale following activation of: A) D1 receptors alone, B) D2 receptors …

Virtual Reality As A Training Tool To Treat Physical Inactivity In Children, Adam W. Kiefer, David Pincus, Michael J. Richardson, Gregory D. Myer

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Lack of adequate physical activity in children is an epidemic that can result in obesity and other poor health outcomes across the lifespan. Physical activity interventions focused on motor skill competence continue to be developed, but some interventions, such as neuromuscular training (NMT), may be limited in how early they can be implemented due to dependence on the child’s level of cognitive and perceptual-motor development. Early implementation of motor-rich activities that support motor skill development in children is critical for the development of healthy levels of physical activity that carry through into adulthood. Virtual reality (VR) training may be beneficial …

Novel Therapeutic Approaches For Juvenile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis (Cln3), Megan Elizabeth Bosch

Theses & Dissertations

Juvenile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis (JNCL) is a lysosomal storage disease caused by autosomal recessive mutations in CLN3. Neuronal loss is thought to occur via glutamate excitotoxicity; however, little is known about neuron-astrocyte glutamate regulation in JNCL. We discovered that Cln3^Δex7/8 astrocytes have significantly lower basal spontaneous Ca²⁺ oscillations and decreased responses to glutamate, indicating a disrupted signaling network. Cln3^Δex7/8 astrocytes also displayed significantly lower basal mitochondrial respiration and ATP production, suggesting impaired metabolic functions. Concurrent with diminished astrocyte metabolism and Ca²⁺ signaling, Cln3^Δex7/8 neurons were hyper-responsive to glutamate stimulation. These studies suggest that CLN3 …

Interhospital Transfer Before Thrombectomy Is Associated With Delayed Treatment And Worse Outcome In The Stratis Registry (Systematic Evaluation Of Patients Treated With Neurothrombectomy Devices For Acute Ischemic Stroke)., Michael T Froehler, Jeffrey L Saver, Osama O Zaidat, Reza Jahan, Mohammad Ali Aziz-Sultan, Richard P Klucznik, Diogo C Haussen, Frank R Hellinger, Dileep R Yavagal, Tom L Yao, David S Liebeskind, Ashutosh P Jadhav, Rishi Gupta, Ameer E Hassan, Coleman O Martin, Hormozd Bozorgchami, Ritesh Kaushal, Raul G Nogueira, Ravi H Gandhi, Eric C Peterson, Shervin R Dashti, Curtis A Given, Brijesh P Mehta, Vivek Deshmukh, Sidney Starkman, Italo Linfante, Scott H Mcpherson, Peter Kvamme, Thomas J Grobelny, Muhammad S Hussain, Ike Thacker, Nirav Vora, Peng Roc Chen, Stephen J Monteith, Robert D Ecker, Clemens M Schirmer, Eric Sauvageau, Alex Abou-Chebl, Colin P Derdeyn, Lucian Maidan, Aamir Badruddin, Adnan H Siddiqui, Travis M Dumont, Abdulnasser Alhajeri, M Asif Taqi, Khaled Asi, Jeffrey Carpenter, Alan Boulos, Gaurav Jindal, Ajit S Puri, Rohan Chitale, Eric M Deshaies, David H Robinson, David F Kallmes, Blaise W Baxter, Mouhammad A Jumaa, Peter Sunenshine, Aniel Majjhoo, Joey D English, Shuichi Suzuki, Richard D Fessler, Josser E Delgado Almandoz, Jerry C Martin, Nils H Mueller-Kronast, Stratis Investigators

Neuroscience Articles

BACKGROUND: Endovascular treatment with mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is beneficial for patients with acute stroke suffering a large-vessel occlusion, although treatment efficacy is highly time-dependent. We hypothesized that interhospital transfer to endovascular-capable centers would result in treatment delays and worse clinical outcomes compared with direct presentation.

METHODS: STRATIS (Systematic Evaluation of Patients Treated With Neurothrombectomy Devices for Acute Ischemic Stroke) was a prospective, multicenter, observational, single-arm study of real-world MT for acute stroke because of anterior-circulation large-vessel occlusion performed at 55 sites over 2 years, including 1000 patients with severe stroke and treated within 8 hours. Patients underwent MT with or …