Seminars & Events
Monday, February 11, 2013: Dr. Daphne Soares (University of Maryland College Park) will speak on "The Sensory World of Cavefishes" at 4:45 pm in Goodpaster Hall 195.
Monday, March 4, 2013: Dr. Joe Cheer (University of Maryland Baltimore) will speak on "Endogenous Cannabinoids and the Pursuit of Reward" at 4:45 pm in Goodpaster Hall 195.
Friday, April 12, 2013: Dr. Jill McGaughy (University of New Hampshire) will speak on "The Role of Cortical Norepinephrine in the Ontogeny of Executive Function" at 3:00 pm in Schaefer Hall 106.
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.
Jones, Shelby (2012). Cognitive and behavioral impairments evaluated in the neonatal ventral hippocampus lesion rat model of schizophrenia. (Mentor: A.M. Brady)
Abstract
The neonatal ventral hippocampus lesion is a neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia that utilizes the disruption of specific anatomical pathways that may be directly related to the prevalence of certain clinical features of schizophrenia (Tseng et al., 2009). The present study compared NVHL rats to control rats in social interaction observations, locomotor testing with and without amphetamine, measurements of sensorimotor gating, and set-shifting abilities. Unique to the present study is the use of an automated task to show these set shifting deficits in NVHL rats. Additionally, previous research has evaluated error types during set shifting, but never have error types been evaluated in NVHL rats during the automated procedure. Another feature of this study is the use of a rat group pre-exposed to a cue light stimulus, a group non pre-exposed, and a reversal group to evaluate lesion-sham differences in their ability to adapt to rule sets opposite of their side bias. NVHL rats in the present study demonstrated reduced prepulse inhibition, an exaggerated hyperlocomotion effect to amphetamine, and deficits in set-shifting compared to control counterparts. Deficits in set-shifting were only seen in rats that were pre-exposed to a cue light, and not found in those that were not pre-exposed to a cue light or those involved in reversal learning. This study attests to the validity of the NVHL model in reproducing impairment expressions in rats that are analogous to humans with schizophrenia.
