Seminars & Events
Monday, September 19, 2011: Dr. R. Christopher Pierce (University of Pennsylvania) will speak on "Epigenetic Inheritance of a Cocaine Resistance Phenotype" at 4:45 pm in Goodpaster 195.
Friday, November 4, 2011: Dr. Paul Shepard (University of Maryland Baltimore) will speak at 3:00 pm in Schaefer Hall 106.
Friday, November 11, 2011: Dr. Mark Bouton (University of Vermont) will speak at 3:00 pm in Goodpaster Hall 195.
Alumni Highlight
Dr. Erin Johnson '02 recently received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and was inducted as an alumni member of Nu Rho Psi.
SMP Spotlight
Ron Saul, "Chronic activation of the substantia nigra nociceptin/orphanin receptor induces motor deficits similar to Parkinson's disease," 2008. Saul, the 2008 winner of the Neuroscience Award, infused a drug into the substantia nigra of rats and measured the resulting motor behaviors, mood disturbances, and cognitive abilities.
Kallevang, Jonathan (2011). Performance on hippocampal dependent tasks in the cycad model of Parkinson's disease in rats. (Mentor: A. Bailey)
Abstract
The cycad model of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) has been shown to produce motor symptoms similar to that of PD, and similar to those seen in the MPTP and 6-ODHA rat models. However, unlike these previous models, cycad is a progressive and variable model that may better reflect idiopathic PD histologically. Here, cycad fed rats were subjected to hippocamal dependent tasks to observe behavioral parallels in the model that are consistent with pre-motor cognitive symptoms in human patients. We found no significant difference between cycad and control performance on the novel object recognition task, fear-conditioning, or open field analysis; illuminating the complexity of the disease pathology and interaction of multiple anatomical regions and neurotransmitter systems. Anxiety related behavior was generally observed in the cycad rats, possibly confounding our results. Also, it is possible that the highest dose of cycad ingestion in this experiment precipitated attentional deficits, but due to a small sample size, further research and experimentation is required.
