GENETIC VARIANCE CONTRIBUTES TO OPIOID AND DOPAMINE RECEPTOR MODULATION OF SUCROSE AND FAT INTAKE AND SUCROSE-CONDITIONED PREFERENCES IN INBRED MOUSE STRAINS
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Whereas genetics and pharmacology influence nutrient consumption, the current dissertation used inbred mouse strains to examine genetic variance in the dopaminergic and opioid modulation of sucrose and fat. The first and second specific aims measured intake of a sucrose solution in 8 inbred and 1 outbred mouse strains following administration of opioid (naltrexone (NTX)), dopamine D1 (SCH23390), and D2 (raclopride) receptor antagonists. NTX inhibited intake strongly in C57BL/10 and C57BL/6, moderately in BALB/cJ, C3H/He, CD-1 and DBA/2, weakly in 129P3 and SJL/J, and not at all in the SWR/J mouse strains. SCH23390 attenuated sucrose intake across five (129P3/J, SJL/J), four (C57BL/6J, BALB/cJ), three (SWR/J, C3H/HeJ, C57BL/10J, DBA/2J) and two (CD-1) of the doses tested. Raclopride was wholly ineffective in attenuating intake. In the third specific aim, intake of a fat solution (Intralipid) was measured in 8 out of 9 prior strains following NTX and SCH23390 administration. NTX attenuated intake at four (DBA/2), three (SWR/J, SJL/J), two (CD-1, C57BL/10), one (C57BL/6, 129P3) and none (BALB/cJ) of the doses tested. SCH23390 reduced intake at five (DBA/2, SWR/J, CD-1), four (SJL, C57BL/6), three (129P3), one (C57BL/10) and none (BALB/cJ) of the doses tested. A high correlation was found in the strain-dependent abilities of SCH23390 and NTX to suppress Intralipid, but not sucrose intake, suggesting differential pharmacological mechanisms responsible. The fourth specific aim investigated genetic variance in experiential factors by examining whether SCH23390 and NTX alter acquisition and expression of a sucrose-conditioned flavor preference (CFP) in BALB/cJ and SWR/J inbred mouse strains. Mice received either vehicle, SCH23390 or NTX prior to acquisition: alternate daily exposure to a sucrose solution mixed with one flavor (CS+/S) and saccharin solution mixed with another flavor (CS-/s) or expression: a two-bottle choice test with the two flavors mixed in saccharin. In expression, strong CS+ preferences were reduced by SCH in BALB and SWR mice and by NTX in SWR mice. In acquisition, CS+/S was reduced by SCH in both strains, and by NTX in BALB/cJ. Sucrose-CFP was reduced by NTX BALB/cJ mice and SCH in SWR/J mice. Taken together, future studies are needed to reconcile the divergent results between strains, pharmacological systems, and nutrients to fully understand their influence on nutrient consumption and CFP.
REFLECTIVE FUNCTIONING CAPACITY IN MOTHERS OF BOYS WITH ADHD, LDS AND ASSOCIATED BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS
Author:
Anne-Britt Ekert Rothstein
Year of Dissertation:
2012
The present study investigated the experience of mothers who have children with ADHD, learning disabilities and behavior problems. Data were collected from 18 mothers of 7 to 9 year old boys with ADHD, and/or learning disabilities and behavior problems using the Parent Development Interview, (PDI-R); (Slade, Aber, Berger, Bresgi, & Kaplan, 2003). The PDI is a semi-structured interview, which asks parents to describe themselves and their children and to talk about their child's and their own emotional experiences, thoughts and feelings at times when things between parent and child go well and when they do not go smoothly. A large amount of psychologically rich data was gathered on the mothers' experience, which was qualitatively analyzed with the aim to add to our knowledge of the experience of mothers raising boys with ADHD, LDs and associated behavior problems. In addition, the narratives of the PDI were scored for reflective functioning ("RF") capacity (Fonagy, Steele, Moran, Steele & Higgitt, 1991; Fonagy, Steele, Steele, Leigh, Kennedy, Mattoon & Target, 1995). RF capacity describes a parent's ability to reflect on her own and her child's state of mind; much research to date suggests that there are many benefits to a mother having good mentalizing capacity, for her child and for her relationship with her child.
On the propagation of musicality: Taking cues from sexual selection
Year of Dissertation:
2011
There is a shortage of empirical literature on the evolutionary functions of music. An overview of the evolutionary theories of music indicates that direct natural, indirect natural, and by-product explanations for the propagation of musicality are unlikely. Research demonstrates that music ability fulfills many of the criteria for a sexually selected adaptation suggesting that contemporary entailments of music may be sexually selected for. However, there has been no empirical investigation of the sexual selection theory of music. This study aimed to: (1) investigate if music is sexually selected for; (2) examine the influence of variables known to affect mating on musical production; and (3) investigate the underlying cognitive constructs of musical production. Using a sample of 92 undergraduate students, aged 18 to 30, several planned tasks examined the effects of sexual and romantic arousal on the production, aptitude, and subjective rating of music. Using a between subjects design, participants read a neutral, short-term mating, or long-term mating vignette before completing tasks assessing musical aptitude, intelligence, divergent thinking, and executive functions. Results indicated that being primed for long term mating increased displays of musicality in both sexes, but when participants were primed to think about short-term mating, only male participants showed increased ratings for musical production. These findings align with the view that displays of music in both sexes may be associated with sexual selection, qualified by amount of parental investment. Results also revealed that musical production was not affected by variables known to affect mating such as mood, ovulation status, current mating situation, caffeine intake, or sex of the raters but musical production was affected by current mating situation and sex of the rater. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. Finally, results revealed no meaningful association between mental flexibility (as measured on tasks of divergent thinking, executive functioning, and IQ) and musical production suggesting that musical production may not be showcasing a fitness for the `g' factor. Taken together these results provide empirical support for Miller's hypothesis that music is, or has recently been a sexually selected adaptation.
From Perceptual Symbols to Abstraction and Back Again: The Bitter Truth about Morality
Year of Dissertation:
2011
The representation and processing of abstract concepts is a poorly understood and controversial area of research in the cognitive sciences. Some traditional and recent approaches argue that abstract concepts are represented in symbolic, amodal channels that are proposed to be distinct from the brain's perceptual centers (Burgess & Lund, 1997; Paivio, 1986, 1991; Pylyshyn, 1973; Schwanenflugel & Stowe, 1989). On the other hand, research in grounded and embodied cognition has shown that sensoriperceptual states can influence cognitive processing in numerous ways (Barsalou, 1999, 2008, 2010), even for abstract concepts like morality (e.g., Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan, 2008). The present research investigated a prototypical abstract concept (morality) and explored the extent to which perceptual information influences the processing of moral judgments. Although various studies have linked physical disgust to moral disgust, surprisingly little research has investigated morality in conjunction with taste. Across three experiments, it was found that gustatory disgust is indeed linked to moral disgust, and this effect is more pronounced in political conservatives than political liberals. Experiment 1 revealed that bitter tastes elicited significantly harsher moral judgments than sweet or control (i.e., water) tastes. Experiment 2 reversed the directionality of this effect and showed that reading about moral transgressions, virtuous, or control events instantiated gustatory disgust, delight, or neutral taste perceptions, respectively. Experiment 3 replicated the basic methodology of the first experiment (but using a within-subjects design) and significantly reduced the effect by asking participants to suppress their perceptual and emotional experiences. Taken together, these taste perception experiments provide additional support for the idea that moral processing draws from perceptual and embodied information, specifically embodied disgust. A new theory is proposed (Distributed Embodied Network Theory) for explaining how perceptual symbols might ground abstract conceptual representations. According to this view, two classes of perceptual information (sensorimotor and affective) provide the foundation for abstract representations and can also be used to predict the abstractness and concreteness of diverse conceptual representations.
Functional Differentiation Between the Left and Right Hemisphere for a Sub-Region of Wernicke's Area is Revealed with fMRI-Guided, Single-Pulse TMS.
Year of Dissertation:
2009
During the past two decades, studies of neural organization have been bolstered by the addition of functional and structural brain-imaging techniques capable of localizing and correlating brain activity to cognitive functions. With potential clinical applications abound, localizing language-related activity prior to neurosurgery is an interest shared by both neuroscientists and neuroradiologists who are interested in protecting essential language regions in neurosurgery candidates. Since imaging is correlative, however, it does not distinguish essential brain activity from supporting and associated activity and therefore cannot be used independently to determine hemispheric language dominance. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), on the other hand, is a non-invasive technique that stimulates targeted brain regions directly and can therefore inform causative structure/function relationships.
Subgroup Differences and Predictive Ability of Psychometric and Neuropsychological Intelligence Measures
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Advisor:
Charles Scherbaum
Researchers recognize that the current models of intelligence are insufficient at making causal connections between the intelligence measure and intelligent behavior. Different approaches to intelligence are under investigation to incorporate within current models of intelligence and include psychometric, neuropsychological, and cultural components. Currently there is a lack of research that incorporates both psychometric and neuropsychological intelligence measures in a predictive model of performance. The purpose of the current study is three-fold. The first objective is to test the predictive relationships of neuropsychological and psychometric intelligence batteries, an alternative psychometric intelligence assessment, and a personality measure in relationship to academic performance. The second objective is to examine racioethnic and gender subgroup mean differences on all predictors of performance. Subgroup mean differences, which can lead to adverse impact, have been found on a variety of verbal and nonverbal intelligence assessments (Hough, Oswald, & Ployhart, 2001). Research has demonstrated that performance differences are often moderated by the type of measure used which also raises concerns about the construct validity of psychometric intelligence assessments. The third objective of the research is to examine the construct validity of neuropsychological intelligence, traditional psychometric intelligence, and alternative psychometric intelligence. There is little empirical evidence which demonstrates that differences in cognitive functioning in the brain result in differences in scores on psychometric assessments. That is, there are few links (i.e., construct validity evidence) connecting cognitive functioning to intelligent performance on psychometric assessments. Hypotheses pertaining to prediction of different measures, subgroup mean differences, and statistical relationships among the intelligence measures were tested. The results indicate that the neuropsychological intelligence battery was the only significant predictor of academic performance. All intelligence measures exhibited subgroup mean differences, however they were smaller compared to what is typically reported in the literature. The Black/African American mean score on the neuropsychological battery was one-third of a standard deviation below the White/Caucasian mean score, and Hispanics demonstrated minimal mean score differences compared to White/Caucasians. Additionally, construct validity evidence emerged for the intelligence measures. A discussion of the findings including their implications is included.
Assessing the Effects of Behavioral Skills Training on Adult Teaching Responses, Learner Acquisition, and Learner Disruptive Behavior Across Responses and Instructional Skill Sets
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Behavioral Skills Training (BST) is a teaching package consisting of instructions, feedback, modeling, and rehearsal that has been effective for training staff to provide intervention to people with developmental disabilities. The purpose of the current study was to assess: (a) whether prior studies demonstrating the effectiveness of BST could be systematically replicated in a variety of teaching procedures, (b) whether the instructional skills that staff acquired during training on one response generalized to a variety of instructional programs, (c) whether positive changes in staff performance corresponded to positive behavior change in learners and (d) whether positive changes in learner behavior generalized to novel programs. Results systematically replicated and extended prior studies by demonstrating that BST resulted in positive behavior change across staff, learners, instructional programs, and various types of teaching skills. Further, for all types of instructional procedures staff displayed generalization of teaching skills to novel responses and learners displayed increases in correct responding, indicating that BST is an effective and efficient intervention procedure.
Rules are Made to be Broken: Multisensory Interactions at Two Stages of Cortical Processing
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Research over the past few decades has illuminated the multisensory brain. While information from the various senses is first processed in segregated channels, this segregation is more the exception than the norm. It has now been convincingly demonstrated that the senses can begin to interact at the onset of processing in early sensory cortices (e.g., Foxe et al., 2000; Foxe & Schroeder, 2005; Lakatos, Chen, O'Connell, Mills & Schroeder, 2007; Lakatos, Karmos, Mehta, Ulbert & Schroeder, 2008; Lakatos et al., 2009; Molholm et al., 2002; Murray et al., 2005). These multisensory interactions continue as environmental stimuli proceed to be processed in higher-order cortical areas, but the rules and outcomes change. The following experiments were designed to investigate the neuroanatomic and neurophysiologic underpinnings of multisensory interactions at two stages of processing: (1) an earlier stage at the onset of cortical processing, where multisensory interactions contribute to detection and selection, and (2) a later stage of cortical processing, where multisensory features are combined into a coherent object. We also focus on the rules that govern these interactions. Basic rules for multisensory integration were first established in the cat superior colliculus (Meredith & Stein, 1983; Meredith & Stein, 1986; Meredith, Nemitz & Stein, 1987). These rules state that multisensory integration is more likely when (1) the unisensory components arise from approximately the same location (i.e., the spatial rule), (2) the unisensory components occur at approximately the same time (i.e., the temporal rule), and (3) the unisensory components elicit weak responses when they are presented in isolation (i.e., the rule of inverse effectiveness). While these seminal rules have provided useful guidelines, more recent research has shown that they are not applicable to all multisensory interactions (e.g., Murray et al., 2005; Stein, London, Wilkonson & Price, 1996; Teder-Sälejärvi, Di Russo, McDonald & Hillyard, 2005; Van der Burg et al., 2008a). Here we provide further evidence that the rules for multisensory integration, as well as its outcomes, depend on several factors, including the stage of cortical processing and the observer's strategic goals.
Perception of Emotion across the Adult Life Span in Three Communication Channels
Year of Dissertation:
2011
The current study examined age-related differences in emotion perception skills in 116 healthy adults, aged 20-89. Subjects completed identification and discrimination emotion perception tasks involving positive and negative emotion stimuli in three channels of communication: facial, lexical, and prosodic. The emotion tasks were from the New York Emotion Battery (NYEB; Borod, Obler, & Welkowitz, 1992).
Peer Pyramidal Training: Effects on Direct Support Staff Teaching Skills and Generalization of Trainer Skills
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Training is important to ensuring that staff members have the skills they need to provide effective and quality services to individuals with intellectual disabilities, but human services agencies often have limited resources to devote to training. The experimenter used two concurrent multiple-probe-across-participants designs to assess the effectiveness of a peer pyramidal training program on staff performance in a day habilitation program for adults with psychiatric disorders and intellectual disabilities. In the first design, the experimenter assessed the teaching skills of peer trainers as they taught their co-workers to implement (1) responses in which the trainers received specific instruction in how to teach (training responses) and (2) responses in which the trainers had no instruction in how to teach to others (generalization responses). In the second design, the experimenter assessed the effect of the peer training program on the staff members' ability to use positive reinforcement and prompting procedures to teach consumers and to document behavioral incidents. Peer trainers improved their use of teaching skills while instructing staff on training responses as a function of the training program. Further, these effects generalized to the instruction of staff on the generalization responses. All staff improved their performance on all responses that the peer trainers taught them following implementation of the pyramidal training program. All participants reported a high degree of social validity. These results extend the research on pyramidal training and suggest that, for human services agencies with widespread budgetary constraints, direct support professionals may be able to train one another effectively.