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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.
Nucleus magnocellularis (NM) is a cochlear nucleus in the avian auditory brain stem which solely receives excitatory input from the auditory nerve fibers of cranial nerve VIII (cnVIII) and bilaterally innervates nucleus laminaris. The...
In this Dissertation, we investigate the regulatory role of dopamine (DA) in the nucleus accumbus (NAcc) in male parental care using the socially monogamous and bi-parental prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) model. In Chapter 1, along...
For my dissertation, I used whole nerve and single-cell recording methods to investigate the influence of organic anions and organic acids on sodium responses by the chorda tympani nerve (CT) that innervates taste buds on the anterior...
Olfactory perception affects the food choice of most living species. A strong set of data have been accumulated to demonstrate that the olfactory bulb, the first relay of olfactory information, as a metabolic sensor. Mitral cells of the...
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...
Olfaction allows vertebrates to sense their chemical environment, and plays an important role in feeding behavior, reproduction, memory and learning. The first portion of the dissertation examined the signal transduction cascade in the...
The anterior third of the hypothalamus contains numerous nuclei involved in the regulation of reproductive, stress, circadian, and homeostatic behaviors. Due to the multifarious roles of this small area, neurotransmission is diverse and...
There are an estimated 44.4 million people living with some form of dementia. Relatively recently, medical professionals have begun to start using odor identification tests to early diagnose dementia-related disorders such as Alzheimer's...
In this Dissertation, I detail how dopamine within the nucleus accumbens regulates social attachment. I first describe our animal model for social attachment, the monogamous prairie vole, and our experimental methods. I then present two...
A proper balance between the phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of intracellular substrates in several brain regions is necessary for learning. conditioned taste aversion (CTA) has several properties that make it an advantageous model...
The main olfactory bulb (OB) receives odorant information from the nasal epithelium, interprets much of that information, and transmits the results to higher cortical regions. The predominant excitatory neurotransmitter in the OB and...
In the female rat, secretion of prolactin is tightly controlled by a complex interplay of both stimulatory and inhibitory hypothalamic factors. In addition, the profile of prolactin release in the ovariectomized rat treated with...
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...
My previous study suggests that the chorda tympani nerve (CT) is important in conveying fat taste information to the central nervous system, as bilateral transection of the CT (CTX) raises the taste discrimination threshold for the free...
Prolactin is a protein hormone predominately synthesized in and secreted from cells in the anterior pituitary gland called lactotrophs. Although prolactin is elevated during other physiological states, mating induces a unique pattern of...
In this Dissertation, I detail how two vocal motor pathways (vocal motor pathway and anterior forebrain pathway) contribute to the vocal production in zebra finch adult song. I first describe a model of rapid dissolution and recovery...
The voltage-gated potassium channel, Kv1.3, carries 60-80% outward current in the olfactory bulb (OB) primary output neuron, the mitral cell. Gene-targeted deletion of the Kv1.3, produces lean mice that have supernumerary and...
It is generally accepted that atypical afferent input to sensory systems during development can lead to a number of abnormalities in target neurons and can even end in cell death. The brainstem auditory system of the chick proves to be a...
Conditioned taste aversion (CTA) is a unique form of classical conditioning whereby an animal learns to associate a novel taste stimulus with negative visceral effects. Acquisition of CTA results in reduced intake of future presentations...
As much as 10% of the US population will experience at least one bout of depression within their lifetime. It has been reported that an increased time spent with major depressive disorder (MDD) results in a decreased volume in the...
This research focuses on the characterization of three isoforms of the human cardiac Troponin C protein previously designed and created by Myriam Badr. These isoforms differ both in the fluorophores bound to the N and C termini and the...
Using the well-established prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) model, my dissertation has explored the underlying neurochemical mechanisms regulating social behavior. In this dissertation I begin with describing the prairie vole model...
This dissertation discusses signal transduction cascades in the vomeronasal organ (VNO) of the stinkpot turtle, Sternotherus odoratus and the Sprague-Dawley rat by investigating downstream signaling events leading to a vomeronasal...
Sensory systems exploit parallel processing of stimulus features to enable rapid, simultaneous extraction of useful information. The mechanisms that facilitate differential extraction of stimulus features across neural pathways include...
The taste system enables the detection and discrimination of potential nutrient sources necessary for maintaining essential life processes. Nutrients bind with taste receptors in the oral cavity that convert the food-derived signal into...
The purpose of this research was to investigate mechanisms underlying sodium deprivation-induced changes in peripheral gustatory neural responses to salt taste stimulation of the tongue. Previous studies have shown a strong link between...
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...
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