Primed for Porn, Investigating the Nuanced Relationship Between Problematic Pornography Consumption and Impulse Control

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Hook, Celeste Primed for Porn, Investigating the Nuanced Relationship Between Problematic Pornography Consumption and Impulse Control Faculty Mentor: Scott Braithwaite, PhD., Psychology Department Introduction As pornography becomes infinitely more accessible through the internet, the number of consumers increases at a rapid rate. Pornography abuse is shown to be a subcategory of hypersexuality (Grubbs, Volk, Exline, […]

S-glutathionylation of VMAT by Acute Methamphetamine

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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 […]

Effects of Relationship Quality on Daily Ambulatory Blood Pressure

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Kyle Eversole and Wendy Birmingham, Department of Psychology Introduction Positive spousal support and relationships that are high in positivity are beneficial in terms of health-outcomes, including lower clinical and ambulatory blood pressure, an indicator of cardiovascular disease risk. Such positive relationships have been associated with lower mortality and morbidity. Conversely, relationships with more negative social […]

The Role of peripheral mechanisms on DA enhancement in the rodent brain

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Christian Carr and Scott Steffensen, Department of Psychology Introduction Dopamine is an important brain neurotransmitter regarding brain disorders such as substance abuse, Schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS). Dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and substantia nigra (SN) are inhibited by DA via DA D2 autoreceptor […]

MRI Tissue-based intensity standardization for multi-site neuropsychological outcome studied: Problems and Potential Solutions

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Trevor Huff and Erin Bigler, Department of Psychology Introduction In this era of the human connectome, automated image analysis techniques, and large scale multi-site neuroimaging databases examining neuropsychological outcome across a broad spectrum of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, there is a particular need to address how to combine neuroimaging studies that use different volumetric sequences […]

Assessing Diagnostic Capacity of Event-Related Potentials in Mild Alzheimer’s Disease

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Jack Silcox and Bruce Brown, Department of Psychology Introduction Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that always results in death. Unfortunately, the death that eventually comes is preceded by vicious symptoms. A patient with the disease slowly begins to lose memory and other cognitive abilities, robbing a person of their mind and life. Alzheimer’s […]

The Effect of Chronic Ethanol on VTA GABA Neurons

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Bair, Stephanie The Effect of Chronic Ethanol on VTA GABA Neurons Faculty Mentor: Scott Steffensen, Psychology Introduction The current accepted model for addiction in the brain is the dysregulation of dopamine (DA) in the mesolimbic pathway, which begins in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and projects to the nucleus accumbens (NAc). DA neurons originate in […]

What Happens When Remember the Wrong Thing: The Effects of False Recognition on Memory Performance

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Ellgen, Amanda What Happens When We Remember the Wrong Thing: The Effects of False Recognition on Memory Performance Faculty Mentor: C. Brock Kirwan, Psychology Introduction Our long-term memory system has the impressive ability to form unique representations of events and later retrieve those distinct events with minimal interference from similar events. For example, you may […]

An Open Source Function Utilizing Random Field Theory for MRI Analysis

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Christensen, Zachary An Open Source Function Utilizing Random Field Theory for MRI Analysis Faculty Mentor: Erin D Bigler, Psychology Department Introduction When looking at an MRI scan of the brain one is actually viewing millions of voxels (three dimensional pixels) that represent individual groups of signals produced by the MRI machine. Therefore, each voxel is […]