The McMurray lab is a behavioral neuroscience lab that focuses on the study of tryptamines commonly found in “magic” mushrooms. The main tryptamine found in these mushrooms is psilocybin, and this has been extensively studied as a therapeutic because of its promising antidepressant effects. The leading theory for why psilocybin possesses this antidepressant efficacy is […]
A22: Impact of Nicotine and Alcohol Individually and Concurrently in ChAT-MOR Knockout Mice
Alcohol and nicotine are common substances that impact individuals individually and concurrently. This project aims to investigate the impact of nicotine and alcohol in ChAT-MOR mice individually and concurrently. Nicotine and ethanol both affect dopamine release through different mechanisms. We are specifically studying the impact of cholinergic interneurons on dopamine release within the striatum. CHAT-MOR […]
A23: The Effects of Lead Exposure During Early Development on Fentanyl Addictive Behavior in Mice
This study investigates a potential causal relationship between developmental lead (Pb) exposure and fentanyl addictive behavior with male and female mice in a Drinking in the Dark (DID) paradigm. Developmental Pb exposure and fentanyl use disorder (FUD) are critical issues in public health. With similar underlying neurological and demographical characteristics between Pb exposure and FUD, […]
C41: Thermal Stability of Yeast Alcohol Dehydrogenase in the Undergraduate Teaching Lab
The enzyme yeast alcohol dehydrogenase (YADH) is used in the undergraduate biochemistry lab class at Miami University to teach students essential biochemical methods and concepts. Specifically, the students compare the wild type enzyme to overexpressed His-tagged YADH. An experiment was designed for students to monitor protein stability over time using recently “upcycled” HP 8453 UV/Vis […]
B46: Improvements to Blood Flow Measurement Technology
Diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) is a non-invasive method to measure blood flow in deep tissue. Typically, DCS equipment consists of a laser, photon counter, and hardware autocorrelator. Photons diffuse through tissue and are detected a short distance away from the source. The resulting signal is sent to a hardware autocorrelator to mathematically determine the blood […]
C38: The Effect of the Network Properties on a Dissociative Dynamic Covalent Bond System
For our project, we are making polymers using thiol adduct. Crosslinked polymers were made using post polymerization modification process with thiol monomers with different chain lengths and different crosslinking densities to find out the activation energy of each system. And in our project, we used GPC and rheometer to analyze our material to make sure […]
C36: Virus hopping between animal and human: Structural characterization of equine G14P[12] rotavirus via X-ray crystallography
Rotavirus is a virus that infects both humans and animals. Group A Rotaviruses are comprised of five genogroups P[1] through P[V], which are further organized into 37 genotypes P[1] through P[37]. These categorizations are based on sequence comparisons of spike proteins VP4 and VP7. As a general rule, P[I] RV’s infect animals, and P[II] infect […]
C33: Engineering Auto-catalytic CRISPR-Cas Sensors for Ultra-sensitive Lead Detection
Lead is an industrially useful element, but too much exposure is known to be extremely dangerous to human health. Toxicity and poisoning can result with symptoms such as anemia, kidney and brain damage, and death. A particular concern is lead toxicity in children due to the irreversible neurological damage and developmental defects that can occur. […]
C32: Revamp, Review, Renew: Developing Codes for YouTube Content Using Updated Mayer’s Multimedia Principles
Chemistry courses are often referred to as “weed out classes” due to the complexity of the subject. While chemistry can be daunting to comprehend, there are ways to aid students in reaching comprehension. Through multimedia such as YouTube, students are able to take in words and visuals simultaneously to enhance learning. Mayer’s research for multimedia […]
C31: Bringing the Heat: Characterizing YouTube videos about Enthalpy using Mayer’s Multimedia Principles
Many students look to YouTube videos for help with general chemistry concepts, but how well do these videos adhere to the guidelines set in place by literature that aims to increase cognitive processing without overloading it? In our study, we create a codebook based on Richard Mayer’s Multimedia Principles that we systematically apply to a […]