Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.
The role of insulin pathways in olfaction are of significant interest with the widespread pathology of Diabetes mellitus and its associated metabolic and neuronal co-morbidities. Previous experiments have been conducted examining insulin...
Many animals, including humans, choose their source of nutrition based on the nutritive value and the flavor (i.e, odor, taste and texture) of available foods. Sweet taste is one of the more potent orosensory stimuli that contributes to...
Genetic animal models have become an increasingly useful tool in addressing pathophysiological changes in neuropsychiatric disorders at the molecular, synaptic and circuitry levels. Previous genetic and postmortem studies have identified...
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) embodies a spectrum of complex, pervasive, and heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorders. There is not one single identified cause, but is instead composed of dynamically diverse etiologies and...
Depression affects approximately 7% of adults in the US annually and is one of the most common mental disorders. One striking aspect of this disorder, is that it affects women at about twice the rate as compared to men. Furthermore, ...
Psychosis may arise from an altered modulation of the mesolimbic dopamine system. However, the source of upstream disturbance and the underlying neural circuitry remain unknown. It is generally agreed that genetic susceptibility...
It has been well established that there is a great deal of individual variability in the response to drugs of abuse as well as to stressful life events. The overall aim of this dissertation is to simply ask what are the neurobiological...
Self-sustaining oscillators regulate diverse aspects of physiology in mammals such as insulin secretion, cell cycle regulation, and circadian rhythmicity. The circadian clock is based upon several interacting feedback loops, which affect...
In male hamsters mating behavior is dependent on sufficient androgens and chemosensory input from the main olfactory and vomeronasal systems, whose central pathways contain cell bodies and fibers of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH)...
While it is well established that estradiol exerts a potent, anorexigenic effect in a variety of species (27; 33; 57; 84), the mechanism underlying this action of estradiol is poorly understood. My previous research has demonstrated that...
Social behaviors are foundational to our society and quality of life while social behavioral deficits are core symptoms in a variety of psychopathologies. Yet, despite the significance for human health, the neural mechanisms that...
The need for expedient detection of and response to signals of danger compels the development of sophisticated neural circuits for threat processing. This threat neural circuitry should support not only identification of and response to...
Rodents depend on the main olfactory and accessory olfactory systems to detect and process chemical-communication signals important for complex reproductive and social behaviors. As the medial amygdala is the first site of convergence of...
Neuromodulation plays important roles in adjusting our nervous system to produce behaviors. The same neuromodulator could have different effects on different targets, or the same target could be modulated by multiple neuromodulators. In...
Little is known regarding the mechanisms underlying the neurobiological consequences of antidepressant exposure during adolescence. Therefore, in this dissertation, I assessed the long-lasting effects of adolescent exposure to Fluoxetine...
As storage device performance increases, the lifespan of an I/O request becomes throttled more-so by data path traversal than physical disk access. Even though many computer performance analysis tools exist, a surprisingly small amount...
Dendritic spines are small protrusions from dendrites on which the majority of excitatory synapses occur (Gray, 1959; Peters et al., 1976; Harris and Kater, 1994). Dendritic spines serve to compartmentalize second messenger systems (Koch...
Early life experiences play a major role in adult onset psychopathology. Childhood maltreatment, whether physical or emotional, is linked to mental illness and behavioral malfunctioning. Individuals who are emotionally, physically, or...
The role of hypocretin (orexin, hcrt/orx) neurons in regulation of arousal is well established. Recently, hcrt/orx has been implicated in food reward and drug-seeking behavior. I report here that in male rats, Fos-immunoreactivity (ir)...
The neurophysiological foundation and anatomical basis of circuits necessary for adult behaviors are established early in development. Numerous perinatal and postnatal variables affect circuit trajectory during developmental sensitive...
Molecular Processing of the Visceral Neuraxis and Conditioned Taste Aversion: The Role of the Protein 14-3-3 and Transducer of Regulated Creb Activity (TORC) Pathway
Conditioned taste aversion learning (CTA) is a form of associative learning in which an animal learns to reject a previously palatable tastant (conditioned stimulus; CS) after conditioning with a toxic unconditioned stimulus (US) such as...
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) gives rise to a progressive disease state that results in many adverse and long-term neurological consequences, including deficits in learning and memory, development of major depressive disorder, and...
The goal of this study was to evaluate the effects of estrogen on cardiovascular regulation and fluid balance, while also controlling for body weight changes that occur as a consequence of ovariectomy and estrogen replacement. In terms...
The endocannabinoid system plays an important role in regulating energy balance. Administration of D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main constituent of the Cannabis sativa plant, increases food intake and decreases energy expenditure...
As the global burden of depression continues to rise, development of more efficacious and faster-acting antidepressant treatments has remained stagnant over several decades. This has created a dire need for a newer generation of...
Oxytocin is a versatile neuropeptide that is involved in a variety of mammalian behaviors, and its role in reproductive behavior has been well established. Oxytocin stimulates male sexual behavior, in part, by promoting erectile function...
It is well known that exposure to severe stress increases the risk for developing mood disorders. However, less is known about the complex interactions between witnessing and experiencing traumatic events. While much has been learned...
It is well known that exposure to severe stress increases the risk for developing mood disorders. However, less is known about the complex interactions between witnessing and experiencing traumatic events. While much has been learned...
Some of the material in is restricted to members of the community. By logging in, you may be able to gain additional access to certain collections or items. If you have questions about access or logging in, please use the form on the Contact Page.