Student Projects

NBB497R,497WR,499R l Honors Description| Checklist | Application | Student Projects

Stephanie M. Allard

Mentor: Dr. Gouzoules at Yerkes.

Research: Our research is finding sex differences in Rhesus Macaque coos, which are a type of vocalization. For the past year, we have been collecting data at the yerkes field station in Lawrenceville. We are analyzing the data to try and find out if the differences in coo structure are sex based.

Eleni Antzoulatos

Mentor: Dr. Dolores Bradley in the Division of Visual Science at the Yerke Primate Center.

Research: My undergraduate research focuses on the development of the infant rhesus eye in response to different rearing parameters. In general, we are studying the effects of visual input on eye growth. Since the visual input to the eye is made up of many different aspects, it is broken down in to individual components that can be studied separately. For example, our last set of monkeys was reared in defocusing lenses (-3 diopter) which is a component of the visual input. These lenses made them more farsighted than they normally were and as a result, their eyes grew faster to compensate for their blurred visual state. As the components are studied separately, the ones which seem to influence eye growth the most will be studied in further detail to determine exactly where this component is having its effect and how it changes eye growth. The detailed knowledge of these components will enable us to explore treatment for eye problems related to eye growth (e.g. myopia) in the individual before the problems actually begin.

Saima Arshad

Mentor: Dr. Lori Marino

Research Title: Determining the relationship between encephalization and life history parameters in Odontocetes.

A plethora of literature exists on the variation of brain growth and life history parameters in primates and others terrestrial mammals. In contrast, very little is known about the relationship between the brain and fife history in cetaceans. To determine whether existing data on these factors are consistent with such relationships in a group that includes some of the most highly encephalized nonhuman mammals, we examined the relationship among encephalization, body weight, and the relative and absoulute lengths of various life history stages in odontocetes. We found no correlation between encephalization and the lengths of any of the life history stages nor did we find a relationship between body weight and absolute age of sexual maturity in both sexes. Overall, these results reveal that odontocetes share some, but not all, geatures of the relationship between brain size, body size, and life history with other mammals.

Christopher Barker

Mentor: Dr. Frank J. Gordon, Dept. of Pharmacology

Research: The goal of my research is to better understand the control of the immune system by the central nervous system (CNS). The nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) has been hypothesized to be a crucial link in the control of the immune system. Through electrolytic lesion studies it is possible to assess in what way the CNS controls the immune system by observing sickness behaviors such as fever, loss of apetite, cellular response (neutrophilia), and increases in the concentration of corticosteroid hormones. My project is concerned with increases in concentration of the corticosteroid, adrenocorticothyroid hormone (ACTH). Using radioimmunoassay, it is possible to measure changes in concentration of the hormone in animals with and without lesions, following the introduction of an immune activating agent such as a lipopolysaccaride (LPS), or other bacterial endotoxin.

Luba Beylina

Mentor: Dr. B. Levin, Biology Dept.

Research: My project is in evolutionary/population molecular genetics, more precisely Evolutionary genetics of antibacterial drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.TB) using Escherichia coli (E.coli) as a surrogate for M. TB antibiotic/drug I am using is rifamycin. At this moment rifamycin is a number one drug for treatment of tuberculosis. Usually treatment lasts about a year during that time bacteria M.TB becomes sensitive to the antibiotic, which means that it does not respond to treatment anymore. I am trying to develop E.Coli mutants which will be resistant to rifamycin.

Matt Campbell

Mentor: Dr. Frans de Waal

Research: Cooperation has been studied extensively to understand its evolutionary origin. Game theory, reciprocal altruism, kin selection, group selection, and mutualism have been the most commonly cited explanations. This study, however, focused on the proximate mechanisms of cooperation. I examined the ability of brown capuchin monkeys, Cebus apella, to understand a cooperative task using mutualism as a model. Two monkeys had to press levers simultaneously for them both to be rewarded. Data were analyzed for the rate of success, the number of lever presses made when the partner was either close to or far from its lever, and the presence of visual communication before or during a lever-pressing bout. The success rate neither increased ignificantly during the experiment, nor decreased significantly during a control where vision between the monkeys was prevented. The monkeys did not press more when their partner was close to its lever than when distant, and the amount of visual communication did not increase over sessions as was anticipated. The data suggest that the monkeys did not learn to cooperate during the course of the experiment. A possible reason is that the monkeys were able to succeed at the task by chance alone; therefore, they did not need a knowledge of cooperation to be successful.

Katie Carpenter

Mentor: Dr. Hillary Rodman in the psychology department.

Research: While I have made occasional trips to Yerkes, most of my research takes place at the Rollins Research Center. My research involves setting a timeline for myelination of visual cortical areas, like primary visual cortex (V1), inferior temporal cortex(IT), orbitofrontal cortex, and dorsolateral cortex, and then correlating that timeline to documented cognitive events (such as motion sensing, face recognition, etc). The subjects are macaques from infancy to about 2 years of age. The procedure involves cutting brain sections from the monkeys (and the use of previously cut slides) and staining them for myelin.

Lindsey R. Fischer

Mentor: Dr. Jonathan Glass, School of Medicine, Neurology & Pathology

Research Title: Distal to Proximal spread of Motor Neuron Pathology in the G93A Mutant SODI Mouse

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurological disorder that causes neuronal and axonal degeneration and leads to progressive muscular atrophy, weakness, and death. Apporximately 2% of cases, termed familial ALS are due to a heritable mutation in the gene encoding cytosolic Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SODI) (reviewed in 6). Transgenic mice carrying mutant human SODI develop a phenotype closely resembling the pathological and clinical symptoms of human fALS (13).

Jeffrey Fromowitz

Mentor: Dr. Ronald L. Calabrese, Biology Dept.

Research Title: Myomodulin-like Neuropeptides in the Leech: Distribution of and Effects on the Heartbeat Neural Network.

I use immunocytochemical techniques to visualize neuronal cell bodies that demonstrate myomodulin-like immunoreactivity. I also person experience recordings of Heart Interest to determine the effect of become publication of different purpose (each moved, dollars moved, and Forward in various concentrations) on the soma. I analyze the data to determine the period, spike frequency and burst duration. The final aspect of my work involves filling heart interneurons and leydig neurons with neurobiotin and then processing them with my standard immunocytochemical protocal to see if they double label (as evidenced by viewing them on the laser scanning confocal microscope).

Nancy Gauchman

Mentor: David Freides

Research Title: The Brain, Attention and the Subjective Experience Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is a heterogeneous diagnosis for a variety of symptoms and comorbid disorders.

My research goal is to participate in the search for homogeneous subgroups to characterize the disorder more specifically. My methods are comparing "typical" college students with students with ADD/H in tests of brain function and behavior, including a covert orienting attentional task, a personality survey, EEG data, and additional tests with hemoencephalography, a new blood flow measuring technique.

Jake A. Gilbert

Mentor: Henry Edelhauser, Department of Ophthalmology

Research: I have been investigating the effects of intraocular pressure on the permeability of human sclera to certain drugs, namely, rhodamine 6G (from solution and on a coil), dexamethasone-fluorescein, and methotrexate-fluorescein. Understanding how drugs permeate the sclera will provide avenues for treatment of certain diseases of the posterior eye, and could be applicable to neuroactive compounds as well. These investigations involve the use of perfusion apparatus which simulates an intraocular pressure by perfusing BSS (balanced salt solution) on the uveal side of the sclera. The drugs are placed on the extraocular side of the sclera and allowed to permeate for up to 21 hours. This data has allowed a constant(K Trans) to be calculated for each of the drugs, as a measure of its ability to cross the sclera.

Daniel H. Goren

Mentor: Dr. Jim Winslow at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center.

Research: We are studying early mother-infant separation in rhesus monkeys and other animals. There is reason to believe that such seperation causes depression, anxiety, and autistic-like behaviors later in life. The lab uses a variety of methods, including behavioral observations, endocrine analysis, and brain scans. My project entails assessing reproductive behavior in mice, some of which were seperated from their mothers.

Charles Gunawan

Mentor: Dr. KP Minneman, Dept of Pharmacology

Research: ADRENORECEPTOR subtype Alpha 1 Splice Variants. Not much are known about these splice variants of Alpha 1-adrenergic receptors. So the goals of this project is to characterise and differentiate these splice variants function.

Sami Jezzini

Mentor: Darrell Stokes, Dept of Biology.

Research: My project involves biochemical characterization of flight muscle in the American cockroach. I am looking specifically at myosin ATPase activity in the sexually dimorphic basalar muscle. Several other undergraduates in the lab are investigating various other properties of the same muscle. Our overall concern is of how muscle structure is related to functional properties.

Elyse R. Katz

Mentor: Dr. Stuart Leff at Yerkes Regional Primate Center.

Research: We are working on new treatments for Parkinson's disease in a nonhuman hemiparkinsonian model. Such treatments include a combination of fetal grafts and gene therapy. We will first develop a lentivirus containing the human GDNF gene, optimize viral titers, and improve surgical procedures. We will subsequently test the neuroprotective and regenerative affects of these treatments in rhesus macaques. This study has been done successfully in rats.

Anna S. Macgregor

Mentor: Dr. Bradley's at Yerkes's Division of Visual Science. The purpose of my research is to study the correlation between prolonged reading and the occurrence of myopia. We are attempting to simulate the effects of prolonged nearwork in a monkey model. To do this, a "matching to sample" task is performed by a rhesus monkey. Once the behavioral training for this task is complete, a photorefractive method will be used to measure whether or not the eye is focusing how a human's would during reading. Data from this experiment should help prove that this relationship.

Allison Newman

Mentor: Dr. Hamann in the Psychology Department

Research: I am working in Dr. Hamann's lab in order to determine the correlation between memory and emotion in the human brain. We are testing the normal population as well as the elderly and Alzheimer populations on the Mere Exposure Taskusing both pictures of faces as well as pictorials. In conjunction with this task, we will be using an Electromyograph (EMG) to determine movement of facial muscles involved in displaying emotions during the task. This research will help to clarify the effect of memory on emotion and it may shed some light on the more specific effects of Alzheimer's Disease.

Kimberly Neyman

Mentor: Dr. Philip Ninan, Dept of Psychiatry

Research Title: Thyroid Axis in Major Depression

Recent studies have focused on the use of T3 as an adjuvant to antidepressant treatment. However, relatively limited research attention has focused on the effects of subclinical thyroid status and gender on treatment outcome. The purposes of this study were: 1) to contribute to the knowledge of the pathophysiology associated with subclinical thyroid abnormalities; 2) to examinee specific differences beetween treatment outcomes in masked groups receiving either seertraline and Cytomel or sertraline and placebo, irrespective of the direction of these difference; 3) to investigate the effecrs of TSH response and gender upon treatment outcome.

Dana Oren

Mentor: Dr Mike Owens

Research: I'm working on a drug accumulation study comparing rats that have been treated with either Fluoxetine or Paroxetine over different lengths of time, ranging from 1-12 weeks.

Jason Paquin

Mentor: Dr. Stephanie Sherman, Dept. of Genetics and Dr. Arlene Chapman (Dept. of Urology, Emory Univ. Hospital).

Research: Severity of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease: A linkage study Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is a genetically heterogeneous disorder that affects 1 in 400 to 2400 individuals in the Caucasian population. Two identified forms of ADPKD, type 1 and type 2, are attributable to mutations in the PKD1 gene on chromosome 16 (16q13.3) and on the PKD2 gene on chromosome 4 (4q21) respectively. The disease is characterized by the formation of renal cysts that are clinically detected with ultrasound and other imaging techniques. The spleen, liver, and pancreas may also exhibit cyst formations. ADPKD is a slowly developing disease although sometimes it can develop prenatally and lead to fetal death. It is also associated with hypertension, cardiac problems, intracranial aneurysms, and/or end stage renal disease (ESRD). Genetic identification of the mutation related to ADPKD may help identify individuals with low risk or high risk for progression to ESRD prior to onset of symptoms and, thus, could be used to augment imaging and clinical diagnosing.

Sunil Pauwaa

Mentor: Dr. Scott O. Lilienfeld in the Psychology Dept.

Research: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between psychopathic personality traits and frontal lobe function. Current research suggests that psychopaths and antisocial individuals may show decreased frontal lobe activity. In this study we employed the Tower of Hanoi and the Control Word Association task, known frontal lobe measures, in assessing frontal lobe capability. Our subject pool consists of college undergraduates, both male and female, between the ages of 18 and 22. Subjects were given the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) developed by Lilienfeld and Andrews to gauge the presence of psychopathic personality traits.

Simon P. Peron

Mentor: Dr. Jaeger's lab in the Biology Department.

Research: Our study involves the analysis of space clamp errors in neuronal studies. That is, when a cell (neuron) is put in voltage clamp so that its properties can be studied, the voltage that is set by the experimenter attenuates as we get further and further away from the current injecting electrode. Our study focuses on the implications of this attenuation for recording distal synaptic events, since the voltage clamp is a staple in synaptic-event-trigerred-current studies. In addition, we are conducting a study on the effects of the space clamp error when measuring distal current properties. The error significantly skews activation curves and other descriptors of channel kinetics that are commonly measured using voltage clamp. Although the channel kinetic information is distorted, we have found that the distortion of synaptic conductances is much more significant, in that often only 5% of the synaptic current is recorded at the soma when the event occurs in an electrotonically distal dendrite.

Dinesh Raju

Mentors: Dr. Mahlon Delong and Dr. J. Timothy Greenamyre in the Neurology Department.

Research: Wilson's disease causes the degeneration of the basal ganglia, an important motor area of the brain, resulting is severe motor deficits. Previous research has elucidated a Wilson's disease gene that appears in two forms: 140-kDa and 160-kDa versions. This protein is localized in the mitochondria and serves a copper-transporting P-type ATPase. Ultimately, the WD protein may affect ATP synthesis in the mitochondria. In light of this initial work, I hope to examine the hypothesis that mitochondrial dysfunction is an integral component of the pathology of WD. This study is a two part project. First, the metabolic behavior of Wilson's cells will be compared to controls to determine if Wilson's cells have a mitochondria dysfunction. The second portion of the study is to elucidate which complex of the mitochondria is defective. Results from this study will contribute to our understanding of the pathogenesis of Wilson's disease, and the conclusions drawn for this project may be extrapolated to other neurological diseases. The first part of the project will provide a diagnostic test to determine if a patient will acquire a neurodegenerative disease prior to the onset of the disease. The second part of the project may allow us to propose that neurodegenerative diseases may have a common link in that they suffer from some type of energy diffenciency mediated by the mitochondria. If mitochondria are defective in neurodegenerative diseases, then pharmacological agents may be designed to not only treat mitochondria but mitochondria before the actual onset of the disease.

Sachin Parikh

Mentors: Dr. David Wright/Dr. Stuart Hoffman in the Brain Research Laboratory.

Research: The project I am working on has to do with whether or not certain neurons in the brain respond better to others with progesterone treatment after traumatic brain injury. I just started working in the lab this semester so I don't know a whole lot about this. I really have not started working on my specific project. I have spent most of the semester familiarizing myself with all the procedures and skills in the lab that will be necessary for me to hopefully undertake my project in full swing by next semester.

Kim-Ngan T. Pham

Research: I am doing my research project with the Emerging Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The following is my project's abstract which was submitted to the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases: ICEID 2000. This is the second International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases. The first meeting was held in 1998 having a capacity crowd of 2,500 scientists working in 70 nations to recognize, study, and prevent infectious disease on an international scale. If the abstract is approval, then I can present this research at the meeting held in Atlanta on July 16-19, 2000.

Melissa A. Pittman

Mentor: Dr. Hamann in the Pych Dept.

Research: The investigation of memory processes. Namely, testing the recognition, recall, arousal and valence of "emotional words" at an immediate response, an hour response, a day, and week.

Adhikari Reddy

Mentor: Dr. Paul Plotsky, Psychiatry

Research Title: Neuroendorine and Behavioral Effects of Maternal Stress and Seperation in Rats

Previous studies indicate that experimental intervention during the neonatal period in rats causes altered maternal care and is associated with a chage in the stress response of the adult offspring. In this study, we examined the effects of exposure of the dams to stress during brief daily seperation periods occurring between postnatal days 2 to 14 of the lactation period on maternal behavior and the HPA axis function of their adult progeny. Rats from two different breeders were utilized in this study to investigate whether substrain differences existed in the sensitivity of the dams to stress exposure.

Bunja J. Rungruang

Mentor: Dr. Donald Bliwise of the Neurology Dept.

Research: I am focusing on assessing and quantifying the behaviors characteristic of REM Behavior Disorder in geriatric patients. REM Behavior Disorder is a condition commonly seen in older people, characterized by a loss of atonia in REM sleep, which results in the individual physically and/or verbally acting out his or her dreams. It tends to be a serious condition because often the individual will hurt his or her partner or, more often, himself or herself unknowingly. There is still relatively little known about the condition, so my research will be an attempt to standardize fundamental aspects of the disorder for future research. (The development of a scale to asses and quantify the behavior had never been attempted before.) I am comparing a group of patients with Parkinson's Disease (who I have hypothesized with show a higher frequency of the disorder due to similar neurobiological mechanisms) to a group of Alzheimer's patients (which has a very different mechanism and will show a lower frequency). My control consists of patients at Wesley Woods with various other disorders, including some who experience seizures (this is a test to make sure I can distinguish between RBD movement and that of seizures, which are similar). To do this (once I gather all of my subjects - a very very long process so far), I will go into the rooms to manually videorecord their REM sleep cycle, view the tapes, and apply the behavioral scale that I am developing under the guidance of my mentor. In the meantime, I have been practicing on previously-recorded taped of patients that were made in the sleep lab.

Zainab Sabuwalla

Mentor: Dr. Elaine Walker in Psychology dept.

Research Title: A study of obstetrical complications, cognitive function, and cortisol in human adolescents.

Numerous studies have shown that exposure of the fetus to obstetrical complications is related to psychopathology in childhood and adulthood. Several models have been advanced to account for such a relationship. One such explanation, suggested by Pasamaick and Knobloch holds that aprenatal or perinatal factor causes some kind of neural or physical damage to the developing child and this damage puts the child directily at risk for psychopathology. A variation of this model, proposed by Allen, is that the neural or physical damage incurred by prenatal or perinatal factors indirectly places a child at risk for developing psychopathology by causing some kind of psychosocial disruption. This sudy examined the potential role of OCs as indirectly contributing to psychopathology by looking at its relationship to cognitive functioning and cortisol release.

Hillary Schiff

Mentor: Dr. Frans deWaal

Research Title: Social learning among kin relationships in chimpanzees

People easily develop concepts of value, in which they associate some value to a seemingly valueless object, most obviously in the case of money. Value can be either can be eiher the way in which an individual views a good or service based on its own qualities or how the individual regards a good or service in relation to another by giving it some sort of relative workth. Brosnan & deWaal have defined value as "short hand for reward association with some specific item which can be used in comparison with other items having different reward associations. Thus, the value of item x can be weighted against that of y based upon characteristics extrinsic to both items, rather than upon their intrinsic qualities.

Patricia L. Schirmer

Research: Through PCR analysis of the capsule locus of Haemophilus influenzae, two H. influenzae b- strains were identified. These strains were found to contain the capB region of the genome, but lack one of the essential exportation genes, bexA. Southern hybridization with a capB specific probe showed that both a 2.1kb and a 2.7kb EcoRI fragment were present in the b and b- H. influenzae strains. Southern analysis of H. influenzae type b with a bexA specific probe identified a 9kb EcoRI fragment. However, when the H. influenzae b- strains were probed with bexA, no bands appeared indicating the loss of this region. A cosmid library was constructed for one of the H. influenzae b- strains. A cosmid clone containing the capB locus was identified using PCR and primers specific for the capB gene. A Southern hybridization probing with capB confirmed that this clone contains a portion of the capB gene locus. This clone is being sequenced so that a clearer picture of the type of mutation that has occurred can be known

Samita M. Sharma

Mentor: Dr. Suybramanian of the Department of Neurology .

Research: My research project focuses on genes therapies for Parkinson's disease in rat models. Parkinsonian rats are created by making 6-OHDA lesions to the SN (substantia nigra). There are various vectors, including AdGDNF (adeno-glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor), which can work against the 6-OHDA effects and protect the DA (dopaminergic) neurons in the SN. My project is concerned with comparing the behaviorial effects in the Parkinsonian rats versus those injected with adenoviral vectors. The methods involved in monitoring the behaviors are SEF (spontaneous exploratory forelimb) testing, EBST (elevated body swing test), and amphetamine-induced rotation test.

Rebecca Steiner

Mentor: Dr. Tom Insel at Yerkes Primate Center

Research: My research project this semester involves the neurobiology of social attachment. By comparing the brain activation during mating of male prairie voles, which form long-lasting pair bonds with their partners, and of male montane voles, which do not form a mate preference, I hope to find a quantitative difference which may be related to the formation of a long term partner preference. I will be using c-fos staining as the quantitative measure of brain activation.

Cynthia M. Tham

Mentor: Dr. Frans de Waal's of Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center.

Research: Our research focuses mainly on cooperation and food sharing of capuchin monkeys. We have two projects being worked on now. One project deals with having a monkey exchange something (eg., a rock) with a human for a food reward. Ultimately we want to find out if some monkeys will trade lower valued food for higher valued food. In addition, the study will find if a monkey will only trade with a human exchanger who gives highly valued foods, as opposed to an exchanger who gives low valued foods. The other research project focuses on finding out if two monkeys will cooperate in opening a box (that requires the strength of two monkeys) for a food reward.

Kristen Toren

Mentor: Dr. Lori Marino

Research Title: Brain-behavior Relationship in Cetaceans: Investigation of the Relationship between Brain Size and Duration of Dives in Odontoceti.

A number of authors have hypothesized that the demands of oxygenation associated with diving have placed constraints on brain size in aquatic mammals such as cetaceans. some findings are consistent with this hypothesis while others are not. In the present study we test the relationship between encophalization level and maximum diving duration in odontocetes. Diving data was collected from the literature for eighteen species and correlation analyses weree conducted, the present findings support the hypothesis that there is a trade off between encephalization level and maximum diving duration inodontocetes. These findings should be considered in teh context of additional factors influencing diving behavior and encephalization.

Sandra S. Tzeng

Research: We are studying the effects of maternal deprivation on CRF development. past experiments have shown thatneonatally stressed rats show hyperactivity of their HPA axis in response to psychological stressors. increases in CRF mRNA, ACTH, and corticosterone indicate hyperactivity of the HPA axis. We will be investigating whether CRF mRNA expression, CRF receptro expression and binding vary in maternally deprived rats. WE will also look at whether CRF mRNA expression, CRF receptor expression and binding vary in different debelopmental stages.

Nicholas Vitone

Research: This research will examine the calls made by infant rhesus macaque males and females in response to social stressors in order to compare the two sexes on acoustical measures that likely reflect emotional state. Through measurement of the acoustical properties of the call, we will examine whether males are more emotional than females in response to social stressors. Only calls recorded during the first eight months of life will be analyzed.

Christie T. Vu

Research: The gastrointestinal tract is lined by a single layer of cells called the epithelium, which acts as a selectively permeable barrier between the external environment and the underlying tissue compartments. Permeability of the epithelium is controlled by protein complexes that connect neighboring cells. These complexes permit the uptake of nutrients and water, while restricting the uptake of harmful pathogens. Communication of junction proteins with the actin cytoskeleton is important in controlling permeability through epithelial cells. Such communication involves a complex network of linker proteins. Alterations in junctional proteins or their associations with actin could lead to defects in permeability. Small GTP binding proteins in the Rho family, consisting of Rho, Rac, and Cdc42, are known to regulate actin cytoskeleton. This study was undertaken to investigate direct associations between Rho and actin or junctional proteins, which could influence permeability in intestinal epithelial cells (IEC). Binding targets for active/inactive Rho-GST fusion proteins were examined in whole cell and membrane preparations from cultured IEC lines. Directinteractions between Rho and actin were observed in the G protein inactive state, whereas active Rho appeared to dissociate from actin. The converse was true with the actin TJ linker protein ZO-1. No associations were detected between Rho and the tight junction transmembrane protein occludin, which has no direct link to the actin cytoskeleton. This study underlines the importance of exploring how junctional proteins and the actin cytoskeleton interact, and may enlighten our knowledge of intestinal epithelial permeability.

Darrin Weiss

Mentor: Dr. Neill of Psychology

Research: We are experimenting with ICSS in the hippocampus of rats and determining how injections of corticosterone (both high and low doses) effects the rewarding response of hippocampal ICSS. If time allows, pharmacological manipulations by other means such as lithium or GABA specific receptor blockers will be used.

Katie Wells

Mentor:

Research: Corticotropin releasing factor(CRF), a 41- amino acid peptide, is involved in the stress response in the mammalian brain. It has been hypothisized to play an importain role in the modulation of endocrine, autonomic, immune and behavioral responses to stress. Three CRF-regulated pathways are thought to be involved in the stress response: the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, the locus coeruleus noradrenaline mediated system, and the sertononmediated system of the dorsal raphe nucleus. Overactivation of CRF tranmission in these systems has been hypothesized to resulot in anxiety and/or depression.

Caroline Zink

Mentor: Dr. Julie Schweitzer.

Research: My research is looking at a detailed analysis of the working memory deficit in those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder using PET imaging.