Mandy Parsons, Justin Bowman and Scott Steffensen, Psychology and Neuroscience Introduction Alcohol abuse disorder is a ubiquitous problem affecting 15.1 million people in the United States, almost 10 million men and more than 15 million women (SAMHSA, 2015). The prevailing view of addiction, including alcohol addiction, is that an increase of the neurotransmitter dopamine in […]
The Role of Interleukin-1 Beta in Methamphetamine Mediated Increases in Dopamine Release within the Mesolimbic Pathway
Anneke Klomp, Ben Lee, and Dr. Scott Steffensen, Neuroscience Department Introduction In this study we wanted to determine the effect that Interleukin-1 Beta (IL-1𝛃) would have in changing the effects that methamphetamines have on dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens (reward center of the brain). It has been well established previously that methamphetamines increases dopamine […]
The Involvement of the IP3 Receptor in the Rewarding/Addictive Properties of Methamphetamine
Mark Woodbury and Dr. Scott Steffensen, Neuroscience Department Introduction Methamphetamine (METH) is a very powerful psychoactive drug that is highly addictive and toxic to the brain. Its use and abuse has been rising in recent years, and certain reports indicate that amphetamine-like drugs are the second most abused drugs worldwide. The side effects of METH […]
Study, Test, Test: A Formula to Distinguish Memory Specificity in Declarative Memory
Jordan Clark and Dr. Brock Kirwan, Psychology Department The goal of this project was to increase our understanding of how human memory works. Specifically, we wanted to investigate what happens in the brain when we make memory mistakes, and to see if there are regions of the brain whose relative activation levels could be predictive […]
Fixation-Related fMRI and Syntactic Networks in the Brain
Brent Foster and Dr. Steven Luke, Neuroscience Department Introduction Humans comprehend language at varying levels of complexity. Syntax, in particular, deals with the arrangement of words and phrases into meaningful sentences. For instance, in English we expect most sentences to follow some variation of the order “Subject–Verb–Object” such as “The boy (Subject) ate (Verb) cake […]
How is Perfectionism Related to Neural Indices of Error Processing and Negative Feedback?
Jayden Goodwin and Dr. Michael Larson, Psychology Department Introduction Perfectionism, or the pursuit of error-free performance, is often associated with shame, guilt, failure, and low self-esteem (Kilbert, Langhinrichsen-Rohling, & Saito, 2005; Stahl, Acharki, Kresimon, Völler, & Gibbons, 2015). Individuals with psychiatric disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), eating disorders, and anxiety disorders often display these […]
S-glutathionylation of VMAT by Acute Methamphetamine
S-glutathionylation of VMAT by Acute Methamphetamine Spencer McCarthy swynnmac@gmail.com smccarth Scott Steffensen Psychology/Neuroscience Introduction Methamphetamine (METH) has long been regarded as a potent addictive drug and psychostimulant. The addictive effects can be localized to the VTA, specifically activity of dopaminergic neurons in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Overactivity of these neurons results in the pleasurable and […]
Polymorphisms of the 5-HTTLPR Gene: Associations to ERN and Depression
Killpack, Curtis Polymorphisms of the 5-HTTLPR Gene: Associations to ERN and Depression Mentor: Michael J. Larson, Psychology and Neuroscience Introduction Our aim with this study of polymorphisms in the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) was to investigate the association between performance monitoring capabilities (i.e., detecting errors in performance using the error-related negativity [ERN] component of the […]