Biological Psychology Commons^™

Parental Stress, Anxiety, And Depression And Child Emotional Intelligence In Children With 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome, Megan A. Goldfarb

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Children with chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) have serious medical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms that are stressful to their parents. Higher general intelligence quotients (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EI) in children could allay parental stress. Self-reported stress, anxiety, and depression were measured in parents of children with 22q11.2DS (n=42) and a healthy control group (n=20) in relation to children’s IQ and EI. Children with 22q1.2DS had lower IQ and EI scores. Parental groups did not differ in their reported stress, anxiety, or depression. Children’s IQ and EI levels did not relate to parental measures of affect even in the 22q11.2DS …

Bubble Stream Production By Belugas (Delphinapterus Leucas), Megan Slack

Theses

Bubble stream production in belugas has been poorly characterized and its function is not well understood. I examined behavioral states when producing bubble streams (“bubbling”), and when bubbling calls, to determine whether bubbling was significantly associated with a particular call category or behavioral state. Using 19 hours of video and audio recordings collected over a two-day period, I quantified bubble streams of a 4-month old calf and an unrelated adult female housed together. Based on the overall activity budgets and pool of vocalizations for both animals, I calculated the expected counts of bubble streams with and without vocalizations, assuming that …

Psychopathic Traits And P3 Modulation During Simple And Complex Target Detection Tasks, Olivia Aveson

Student Theses

Psychopathy is notable for traits of impulsivity, irresponsibility, and proneness to boredom, characteristics that are all substrates of executive function. However, event-related potential (ERP) P3 studies of attention-related abnormalities in the context of psychopathic traits have yielded inconsistent results (Gao & Raine, 2009). The current study attempted to address these discrepancies by investigating the effects of psychopathic traits on P3s during two attentional tasks. Two groups of ERP participants (n = 28) who had high (T score greater than or equal to 50) or low (T score less than or equal to 40) Psychopathic Personality Inventory – …

Examining The Associative Learning And Accumbal Dopaminergic Mechanisms Of Caffeine Reinforcement, Curtis Bradley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Caffeine is the most consumed psychoactive substance in the world, and most caffeine consumption in coffee and energy drinks is intended to produce a psychoactive effect. However, caffeine is not a primary reinforcer in preclinical paradigms – non-human species do not reliably take the drug to produce a psychoactive effect. However, caffeine is a ‘reinforcement enhancer’ in preclinical models; the effects of caffeine increase the motivation to obtain other non-drug reinforcers. The overall goal of this project was to determine if these reinforcement enhancing effects of caffeine could promote caffeine self-administration and to subsequently investigate the behavioral and neurochemical underpinnings …

Coping With Stereotype Threat: Multiple Identities And The Role Of Gender-Professional Identity Integration (G-Pii), Amy Jia Ying Lim

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Negative stereotypes concerning females’ inferior quantitative abilities continue to hinder females’ preference and success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Studies on multiple identities show that priming females with a favorable identity, a social identity they possess that is associated with superior quantitative abilities, can reduce the aversive effects of stereotype threat. However, this line of research overlooked the fact that females manage their multiple identities in different ways and therefore respond to identity cues differently. This paper examined the role of gender-professional identity integration (G-PII), an individual difference on perceived compatibility of gender and professional identities, in …

Functional Polymorphisms Of Alcohol Metabolism Genes And Their Protection Against Alcoholism Via Gene Therapy: A Systematic Review, Olivia Tzeng

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Around 45% of East Asians are unable to fully metabolize ethanol due to functional

polymorphisms of alcohol metabolism genes, specifically alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). These individuals display high levels of toxic blood acetaldehyde when consuming alcohol, causing symptoms such as tachycardia, vomiting, and flushing. The studies included in this review examine how functional polymorphisms of ADH and ALDH protect against alcoholism in addition to how polymorphisms can be utilized as protection against alcoholism via gene therapy. The studies included found that carriers of the ADH and ALDH polymorphisms were 66 to 99% genetically protected against alcoholism. Through …

The Immediate And Long-Lasting Cognitive Consequences Of Adolescent Chronic Sleep Restriction, Kerry Howard

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Adolescence is a critical developmental period. An important change that occurs in adolescence is the neurological maturation for adult-type cognitive abilities. Research has linked adequate sleep quantity to successful learning and memory capabilities. However, due to a shift in sleep timing drive in adolescence, in combination with early awakening for school, the adolescent population is experiencing chronic sleep restriction (CSR). What repercussions to long-term memory capabilities could CSR in adolescence have immediately and are the consequences long-lasting? The present study modeled human adolescent CSR in rats through four hours of sleep deprivation for five days, followed by two days of …

Attentional Sub-Processes Involved With Emotional Eating, Gregory Denke

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Emotional eating behavior is characterized by eating a large amount of calorie dense sweet and/or high fat foods in an attempt to control, cope with, or avoid negative emotions. Numerous factors are likely to contribute to emotional eating behavior, including attentional factors, such as rumination and avoidance coping. Rumination based emotional eating (attention focused on negative stimuli while mindlessly eating) is often utilized to improve mood while dwelling on problems. However, for those inclined to escape/avoid troublesome thoughts, another type of emotional-eating pattern may be used. By focusing attention on food, emotional eating is believed to distract individuals from negative …

A Program Evaluation Of A Drug And Alcohol Family Treatment Program, Katrina Ramirez

Doctoral Dissertations

The current study is a program evaluation at John Muir Behavioral Health, Center for Recovery. The research determined the effectiveness of the program at Center for Recovery that is offered to patients that struggle with substance use disorder and their families. The purpose of this study is to assess patients’ behavioral, cognitive and social/environmental factors as it relates to their commitment to sobriety and examine how the involvement of family members influences the patient’s recovery process. I utilized a mixed methodology of quantitative and qualitative interviews of patients and family members. The findings suggest depressive symptoms were negatively correlated with …

Smaller Hippocampal Volume In Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Multisite Enigma-Pgc Study: Subcortical Volumetry Results From Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Consortia, Mark W. Logue, Sanne Jh Van Rooij, Emily L. Dennis, Sarah L. Davis, Lauren O’Connor

Publications and Research

BACKGROUND—Many studies report smaller hippocampal and amygdala volumes in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but findings have not always been consistent. Here, we present the results of a large-scale neuroimaging consortium study on PTSD conducted by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC)–Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) PTSD Working Group.

METHODS—We analyzed neuroimaging and clinical data from 1868 subjects (794 PTSD patients) contributed by 16 cohorts, representing the largest neuroimaging study of PTSD to date. We assessed the volumes of eight subcortical structures (nucleus accumbens, amygdala, caudate, hippocampus, pallidum, putamen, thalamus, and lateral ventricle). We used a standardized image-analysis and …

Literature Review And Proposal: Yoga As Group Exercise Involving Oxytocin Release For Positive Mood Improvement, Rachel Fenton

Honors Projects

A literature review discusses yoga and health involving oxytocin creates the premise for a proposal combining the knowledge of yoga and its health benefits along with oxytocin's potential involvement during group exercise, yoga specifically. The proposed study's results of oxytocin measures and questionnaires have the potential to develop an understanding of the possible impacts of yoga on mood, particularly relationships between group exercise and yoga, which may help develop forms of group exercise or implement group yoga to assist or replace treatment for stress-caused or stress-related disorders.

Social Work Trauma Interventions: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Kassie Baumann

Senior Honors Theses

According to Lynne Weilart (2013), in her article on the reasons why people seek out therapy, trauma is the number one reason people attend counseling. Many different trauma-informed approaches are designed specifically to address the consequences of trauma and to facilitate healing. Some of these approaches are as follows: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT); Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT);Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT); Trauma Systems Therapy (TST); Trauma Assessment Pathway (TAP); and Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency (ARC) (de Arellano, Danielson, Ko, & Sprauge, 2008). The effectiveness of each trauma intervention will be examined. DBT is one of these trauma interventions that is growing …

Treating Adhd With Suggestion: Neurofeedback And Placebo Therapeutics, Robert T. Thibault, Samuel Vassière, Jay A. Olson, Amir Raz

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Objective: We propose that clinicians can use suggestion to help treat conditions such as ADHD. Methods: We use EEG neurofeedback as a case study, alongside evidence from a recent pilot experiment utilizing a sham MRI scanner to highlight the therapeutic potential of suggestion-based treatments. Results: The medical literature demonstrates that many practitioners already prescribe treatments that hardly outperform placebo comparators. Moreover, the sham MRI experiment showed that, even with full disclosure of the procedure, suggestion alone can reduce the symptomatology of ADHD. Conclusion: Non-deceptive suggestion-based treatments, especially those drawing on accessories from neuroscience, may offer a safe complement and potential …

Effort-Related Decision Making In Comt Variant Mice: Pharmacological Studies And Genetic Susceptibility To Motivational Dysfunction, Suzanne Cayer

Honors Scholar Theses

Effort-related decision making tasks in animals can model motivational symptoms in humans, which are a set of symptoms spanning a multitude of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as major depressive disorder and the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The present studies aimed to evaluate the effort-related effects of the Val158Met polymorphism of human catechol-methyltransferase (COMT), by testing mice carrying either the human COMT Val (n=8) or Met allele (n=8) with Wild-Type control mice (n=15) by using concurrent FR2 and FR4/pellet choice tasks in a touchscreen operant conditioning apparatus. The Val158Met polymorphism has been repeatedly associated with neuropsychiatric disorders, and the Val allele has …

Memory Complaint Profiles In Dementia Populations Utilizing The Memory Complaints Inventory, Becca N. Johnson

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The Memory Complaints Inventory (MCI) is a self-report questionnaire developed by Paul Green to provide further effort-related evidence in neuropsychiatric practice. It is comprised of nine subscale scores, in addition to the imbedded Plausible and Implausible symptom validity scales. The current study utilized archival MCI scores in dementia populations to determine the presence of, and difference between, genuine memory impairment profiles in separate subgroups of cognitive impairment. The study sample consisted of 244 adults presenting to an outpatient neuropsychology practice for evaluation of memory impairment. The diagnostic categories of the sample consisted of Alzheimer’s Disease (n = 21), Vascular …

Facebook As A Social Outreach And Advocacy Tool In Intersex/Dsd Groups, Emelie J. Ali Ms

Publications and Research

My project includes a netnography of a Facebook intersex group called Families and Friends of Intersex People. I observed the group’s forms of communication within the group and which topics they discussed. It appears one of the major concerns the group has is the use of nonconsensual, sex assignment surgery on infants to “correct” their body to match a gender identity. I have also discovered a link between being intersex and affiliated with the LGBT+ community. Since the 20th century, intersex people have been stigmatized due to their assumed ability to engage in sexual, same-sex relations. I have concluded that …

The Ush2a Gene: An Analysis Of Ultrasonic Vocalizations In A Mouse Model Of Usher Syndrome Type 2, Kiana R. Akhundzadeh

Honors Scholar Theses

Usher syndrome type 2 is a complex autosomal recessive genetic disorder that is characterized by moderate to severe congenital sensorineural hearing loss, the onset of retinitis pigmentosa in the second decade of life, and in some cases, vestibular dysfunction. Mutations in the USH2A gene account for 85% of cases of type 2. The USH2A gene is responsible for encoding the protein usherin, which has an important role in the development and function of inner ear hair cells and retinal photoreceptors. Until recently, it has been believed that carriers of the USH2A mutation were phenotype free. However, recent data has suggested …

Detecting Suicide Risk From Wristworn Activity Tracker Data Using Machine Learning Approaches, Pallavi Atluri

Electrical Engineering Theses

Suicide is a prevalent cause of death worldwide and depression is a primary concern of many suicidal acts. It is possible that an individual during depression never has any suicidal thoughts at all. On the other hand, some individuals in stable condition with no apparent symptoms of depression feel urges to commit suicide (suicidal ideation). Many such individuals never let anyone know what they are feeling or planning. Suicidal ideation considered an important precursor to suicidal acts.

Detecting the suicide risk in individuals with mood disorders is a major challenge. The current clinical practice to assess suicide risk in these …

Heart Rate Variability: The Effects Of Self-Compassion, John Beckius

Psychology Student Work

Psychologists are interested in self-compassion and its effects on our biopsychological well-being. A common method found throughout much research in assessing this is through heart rate variability. In the present study, we attempt to see whether or not self-compassion has an impact on one’s heart rate variability as a higher HRV indicates one is better able to adapt to stress. Self-compassion was measured through a self-compassion survey and we hypothesized that heart rate variability would then be prone to change across three 5-minute test intervals. We unfortunately found no significant change in HRV predicted by our hypothesis. Given the results …

Heart Rate Variability: Impact Of Neuroticism And Social Isolation, John Beckius

Psychology Student Work

Psychologists are interested in self-compassion and its effects on our biopsychological well-being. A common method found throughout much research in assessing this is through heart rate variability. In the present study, we attempt to see whether or not self-compassion has an impact on one’s heart rate variability as a higher HRV indicates one is better able to adapt to stress. Self-compassion was measured beforehand through an online self-compassion survey that contained subscales measuring neuroticism. We also tested to see if social isolation would have an impact on HRV. Social isolation was implemented through a computer program game titled CyberBall, …