BIO/PSY 159, Seminar in Neuroscience, is a class taught by Dr. Joyce Fernandes and familiarizes students with ongoing Neuroscience research at Miami University. The class worked in groups to identify a research lab of our choice. This group chose to explore Dr. Thomas’ research lab in the Psychology department, with interests in cognitive neuroscience. The […]
B24-P: Twitching for Psilocybin: Evidence for an Entourage Effect in Psilocybin Containing Mushrooms
Preliminary research with psilocybin has shown its potential therapeutic efficacy as a treatment for depression, anxiety, PTSD, and substance use disorders. However, we do not know much about the drug’s pharmacological mechanisms and if related tryptamines, like norbaeocystin, could have similar efficacy or better when administered alone. We also were curious as to if norbaeocystin […]
B26-P: A Novel Optical Method for Quantifying Neural Activity
Assessment of neural activity in awake and behaving animals is notoriously complex, and often challenging for undergraduate students to implement in their research. In the last two years, a new technology has emerged that has dramatically simplified the assessment of neural activity in awake behaving animals, called Fiber Photometry, making it potentially useful in an […]
A16-P: Exploring Dr Radke’s Reward and Addiction Lab
This is a project for Seminar in Neuroscience regarding the RAD Lab. The Reward and Addictive Disorder (RAD) Lab is a research lab at Miami University that makes use of mice in order to study compulsive and reward-seeking behavior. More specifically, the RAD Lab seeks to study changes in brain function associated with maladaptive behaviors […]
C38-P: Role of β-Adrenergic Signaling in Infant Stress-Enhanced Fear Learning
Early life stress (ELS) produces an increased vulnerability for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One of the hallmark characteristics of PTSD is an increase in fear responding over time (Elharrar et al., 2013). Using a well-established rodent model developed in our lab between early life adversity and the development of PTSD-like phenotype, which we call stress-enhanced […]
C40-P: The Impact of Early Life Stress on the Development of Obesity and Anxiety Behavior in Adulthood
Individuals who experience early adversity are vulnerable to numerous somatic (e.g, obesity, heart disease) and psychological (e.g., anxiety, depression) health consequences later in life. Obesity affects one in six children and more than one-third of all adults in the United States. Current stress indicators range from absence of, or neglect by, the mother to a […]
C44-P: The Effects of Early Life Stress and Serotonin Antagonist Injection in Rat Stress-Enhanced Fear Learning
Early-life stress (ELS) has been found to increase the risk of mental illness and physically alter brain structures and cognition. Research shows that exposure to acute ELS leads to enhanced fear learning later in life. There is some evidence that serotonin signalling mediates anxiety-induced increases in adult fear learning. Specifically, 5HT-2C serotonergic receptors appear to […]
B25-P: A Novel Circuit Controlling Motivation
To maximize rewards, one must learn what specifically causes those rewards. This learning process is disrupted in numerous psychological disorders, including depression and substance use. Understanding the systems responsible for these processes is key to developing future treatments for psychological diseases. The serotonin and dopamine systems play critical roles in learning and motivation. While these […]
CSI-05: Parental and Child Psychosocial Benefit From a Summer Camp Designed for Medically Fragile Youth
Summer camp provides a normative childhood experience for many healthy, neurotypical youth across the United States. To expand the number of youth given access to these experiences, summer camps have been created in recent decades catered towards medically fragile or non-neurotypical youth. Dragonfly Forest is one such summer camp that provides programming for kids with […]
B03: Genetic Manipulation of Nerve Ensheathment in fruit flies: Impacts on Motor Behaviors
The fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is a well-known genetic model organism, with over 100 years of research. Over a 10-day life cycle, an embryo hatches to give rise to a larva, which grows in size and, after a four day period of metamorphosis, a fly emerges. Each stage has distinct behaviors, which are associated with […]