Adriana Abud, “Analyzing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder with the Three Impulsivity Factors” Mentors: Han Joo Lee & Abel S. Mathew, Psychology The current study is based on analyses conducted from a previous study looking at the correlation between response inhibition (RI)…… Read More
Connor Lynch, “Analyzing Parent-Child Feeding Through Child Behavior and Feeding Relationship Disturbance” Mentor: W. Hobart Davies, Psychology Feeding relationship disturbance can stem from the parent’s and child’s attitude toward mealtime as well as the environment surrounding the mealtime. In the…… Read More
Jose De La O Arechiga, “Antioxidant Rich Diets Are Associated with Increased Verbal Fluency in Young Adults” Mentors: Krista Lisdahl & Ashley Stinson, Psychology Research shows that high antioxidant (e.g., vitamin E and beta-carotene) diets are associated with superior performance…… Read More
Carli Kugel, “Attention Training for Athletes: A Feasibility Assessment” Mentors: Han Joo Lee & Maryam Ayazi, Psychology Many athletes face negative consequences due to performance anxiety. One possible consequence may be how performance anxiety could affect attention negatively. Relevant literature…… Read More
Rob Steger, “Cardiovascular Reactivity in Runners” Mentors: Raymond Fleming & Hanna Johnson, Psychology Regular cardiovascular exercise, such as running, is physiologically and psychologically protective against stress. Once accustomed to these positive effects, runners who are deprived of exercise exhibit increased…… Read More
Isabel Crespo, “Comparing Measures to Capture Attention Difficulties in Young Children with Neurofibromatosis 1” Mentor: Bonita Klein-Tasman, Psychology Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal dominant disorder that presents with medical symptoms and increased risks of difficulties in various areas…… Read More
Claire Piehowski, “Differences in Approaches to Feeding Children as a Function of Parent Marital Status” Mentors: W. Hobart Davies & Paulina Lim, Psychology The existing literature has limited background on comparing marital status and how this influences Pediatric Feeding Problems…… Read More
Olivia Dye, “Effects of a Novel, Non-Toxic Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor on Memory Formation in Mice” Mentors: Karyn Frick & Sarah Beamish, Psychology As researchers make strides to understand how the brain and memory function, memory formation continues to have many…… Read More
Tessa Miskimen, “Effects of Physical Salience and Learned Aversive Value on the Deployment of Attention” Mentors: Deborah Hannula & Fred Helmstetter, Psychology Recent work from our lab indicates that attention capture can be observed for learned fearful stimuli. However, aversive…… Read More
Ashley Trapp, “Explicit and Implicit Aspects of Dietary Behavior” Mentor: David Osmon, Psychology We investigated the relationship of explicit and implicit thoughts in dietary behavior such as eating behavior, food choice, and dietary intake using questionnaires about dietary behavior as…… Read More
Danielle Zube, “Exploring Behavioral Response to Behavioral Play Therapy in Children with Williams Syndrome” Mentors: Bonita Klein-Tasman & Brianna Young, Psychology Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder caused by a microdeletion of genes on chromosome 7q11.23. Previous research…… Read More
Janet Lagunez-Garcia, “Individual Factors Associated with Anxiety-Induced Stereotype-Specific Deficits in Cognitive Control” Mentors: Christine Larson & Richard Ward, Psychology Implicit racial bias encompasses the attitudes one has about specific groups that occur outside of their own conscious awareness. Current theories…… Read More
Taylor Beecher, “Intimate Partner Violence and Adverse Childhood Experiences in Sexual Minority Dating Relationships” Mentor: Ryan Shorey, Psychology Intimate partner violence (IPV), including physical, psychological, and sexual aggression, is equal to or greater in sexual minority (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual…… Read More
Ryan Thiede, “Learning-Induced Changes in Astrocytic Immediate Early Gene Expression in the Dorsal Hippocampus” Mentor: Karyn Frick, Psychology Dementia is an ever-growing mental health problem that affects millions of people every year. Identifying ways in which to prevent and reduce…… Read More
Aime Skrober “Life Stressors Predict PTSD Symptoms Following a Traumatic Injury” Mentors: Christine Larson, Elisabeth Webb & Jayson Schalk, Psychology Previous research has shown that life stressors may contribute to the risk of developing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after a…… Read More
Tiffany Polzin, “Molecular Mechanisms of Estradiol/TrkB Interactions in the Dorsal Hippocampus of Female Mice” Mentors: Karyn Frick & Kellie Gross, Psychology Our laboratory has previously demonstrated that 17β-estradiol (E2) enhances memory consolidation in both object placement (OP) and object recognition…… Read More
Ciera Oglesby, “Morphological Analyses of Regular-Spiking and Late-Spiking Neurons in Hippocampus” Mentor: James Moyer, Psychology The hippocampus is a brain structure that plays an important role in information processing and long-term memory formation. It can be further divided into two…… Read More
Eric Wendt, Brittany Larson & Yael Greenberg, “Motivation is Deficient in the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR)” Mentor: Rodney Swain, Psychology Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed childhood neurobehavioral disorders. ADHD is characterized by three…… Read More
Madeline Rech, “Nail Biting and Nail Picking: A Comparison of Related Behaviors” Mentors: Han Joo Lee & Abel S. Mathew, Psychology Body focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) are urge-driven behaviors, which include skin picking, hairpulling, cheek biting, nail biting (NB) and…… Read More
Sophia Salas, “Neural Underpinnings of Attention in Children with Neurofibromatosis Type 1” Mentor: Bonita Klein-Tasman, Psychology Electroencephalogram, or EEG, is a safe, noninvasive form of measuring the physiological differences associated with cognition. EEG directly measures neural activity through the summed…… Read More
Jocelyn Jarvis, “Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status, School Affiliation and Stress in Adolescents” Mentors: Krista Lisdahl & Ryan Sullivan, Psychology Prior research on stress in adolescents have revealed that lower SES and ethnic minority status are both related to increased stress……. Read More
Lydia Chechowitz, “Self-Selected Leisure Promotes Ambulatory Blood Pressure Dipping: A Within-Person Field Experiment” Mentor: Marcellus Merritt, Psychology An early indicator of future cardiovascular risk is a lack of nighttime blood pressure (BP) dipping from daytime to nighttime. Identifying what behaviors…… Read More
Grace Feucht, “Sex Differences in Hippocampal Immediate-Early Gene Expression Following Context Fear Conditioning” Mentor: James Moyer, Psychology Women are twice as likely to suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than males (Richards & Van Neil, 2017). PTSD can be modeled…… Read More
Aleia Olson, “Sex Differences in Immediate Early Genes in Retrosplenial Cortex Following Context Fear Learning” Mentors: James Moyer, Hanna Yousuf & Chad Smies, Psychology Many people experience traumatic events that lead to long-lasting fear memories that are key components of…… Read More
Marie Enderle, “Social Functioning Difficulties in Young Children with Neurofibromatosis Type 1” Mentor: Bonita Klein-Tasman, Psychology Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder affecting 1 in 3,500 people and is characterized by cognitive, academic and executive difficulties, as well…… Read More
Ryan Conrad, “The Effect of Rumination on PTSD in Veterans Exposed to War Zones” Mentors: Han Joo Lee & Abel S. Mathew, Psychology Research has shown a relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression (Orsillo et al., 1996). A…… Read More
Tien Kolodziej, “The Effects of Anxiety Disorders on Response Speed” Mentors: Han Joo Lee & Salahadin Lotfi, Psychology It has been shown that the brain slows down in many reaction time tasks when people commit an error compared to when…… Read More
Ashna Pandya, “The Relationship Between Attention Control and Hyperarousal Symptoms in PTSD” Mentors: Han Joo Lee & Abel S. Mathew, Psychology Research has shown deficits in working memory in association to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, few studies have evaluated…… Read More
Sana Shakir, “The Resolution of Visuospatial Attention is Variable Between Individuals” Mentor: Adam Greenberg, Psychology Attention is the process by which relevant sensory information is highlighted for further processing. Spatially selective attention in the visual domain has a limited resolution…… Read More
Sarah Bodhy, “The Role of Response Inhibition Deficits in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder” Mentor: Han Joo Lee, Psychology Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder characterized by recurrent obsessions or compulsions that cause marked distress and interfere with daily functioning. Therefore, the…… Read More
Carnita Lincoln, “The Role of the Nucleus Reuniens in Memory Consolidation and Visualization of its Projections” Mentor: Karyn Frick, Psychology Concurrent activity in both the dorsal hippocampus (DH) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is necessary for the consolidation of spatial…… Read More
Hannah Adams, “What is the Stroop Interference Effect?” Mentor: David Osmon, Psychology The construct validity of the DKEFS-Stroop CW trial has not been examined using reaction time and Miyake executive function timed measures. The present study did so using simple,…… Read More
Sofia Mattson, Joseph Kornkven & Amberly Krause, “Working Memory Filtering Efficiency of Threatening Words” Mentor: Christine Larson, Psychology In the current study, we examined if working memory was also impacted by threatening words, specifically investigating working memory filtering efficiency of…… Read More