Alev Ecevitoglu, Psychological Sciences

Current Research: The vast majority of rodent studies on effort-based choice have been conducted in males; however, women are more likely to develop depression than men. Thus, the current study focuses on finding novel treatments by taking a multidisciplinary approach (behavioral and neurochemical) to determine if novel atypical dopamine transporter (DAT) inhibitors can improve motivational dysfunction in female rats. Behavioral assessment of atypical DAT inhibitors: Effort-related motivational functions in female rats. Two novel DAT inhibitors from the NIDA laboratory of Dr. Amy Newman (JJC8-089 and RDS3-094) will be assessed in tests of effort-based decision making using: a) reversal of tetrabenazine-induced low-effort bias as assessed using the concurrent fixed ratio (FR) 5/chow feeding choice task, b) selection of high-effort lever pressing using the concurrent progressive ratio/chow feeding choice task after acute and repeated injections in females. It is hypothesized that both of these compounds will increase the exertion of effort. Pharmacodynamic characterization of the atypical DAT inhibitors in female rats: Microdialysis and pDARPP-32 expression. These compounds will also be tested for their neurochemical effects on nucleus accumbens DA transmission, using microdialysis, and expression of pDARPP-32(Thr34) to provide pre-and postsynaptic measures of DA transmission. It is hypothesized that both compounds will increase extracellular DA and pDARPP-32(Thr34) expression.

Jie Luo, Psychological Sciences

Current Research: My research interests intersect cognitive neuroscience, clinical psychopathology, and translational work in education. My current meta-analysis project, which is part of my Master’s is motivated by the following: (1) While past studies have conducted reviews of EWB neuroimaging studies to find the neural components of EWB, they are primarily qualitative reviews and not quantitative analysis, which may induce investigator bias. (2) EWB is closely associated with outcomes of neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression. By identifying neural components of EWB, we may ultimately understand brain-based phenotypes for predicting and optimizing the outcome of some neuropsychiatric disorders. In my current project and as part of my Master’s project, I plan to go beyond synthesis of the results and the current subjective definition of EWB based on prior observations, and develop a neurally-inspired theory of EWB. My Master's thesis committee includes: Prof. Crystal Park who specializes in clinical psychology, EWB and mind-body interventions, and Prof. Roeland Hancock whose expertise is in cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging meta-analysis. I have proposed my Master’s project and it has been approved. Two trained individuals independently screened, coded, and quality assessed each paper included in this meta-analysis. I am preparing to submit an abstract for the Association for Psychological Sciences Annual Conference (Washington DC, May 25 28, 2023) based on this work.

Jairo Orea, Physiology and Neurobiology

Current Research: Literature reports an understudied short latency circuit directly inputting MGm from the cochlear nucleus. To begin elucidating this non-cannonical circuit, we performed a preliminary set of injections with a reliable retrograde tracer injected in MGm and observed retrograde labeled cells in the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN) and more densely in the ventral cochlear nucleus (VCN). The current literature has only studied them with. anterograde or bidirectional tracers in rat. Therefore, we are now carefully mapping them to create the first set of comprehensively mapped retrograde tracer injections from MGm to the cochlear nucleus. I am continuing to conduct injections to provide more detailed mapping of the cochlear inputs into MGm. Determining these connections will allows us to link this circuit to the fear learning circuitry via genetic Cre-recombinase mediated transsynaptic viral tracing. Our preliminary transsynaptic tracing experiments in the MGB and auditory cortex showed transsynaptic transport and in doing so began delineating the challenges that this emerging technique may bring. It additionally sets novel precedent for a possible transsynaptic circuit from MGm/PIN to cortical cells that project directly to the lateral amygdala We have planned experiments to elucidate this circuit using cutting edge microscopic serial multiplexing technologies to improve single cell characterization and allowing synaptic verification at the electron microscope level.

Aleksandra Rusowicz, Psychological Sciences

Current Research: Continuing my interdisciplinary research in psychology and political science, I am currently working with Dr. Pratto and my secondary advisor, School of Nursing Professor Dr. Natalie Shook, to study prejudice and 2020 vote choice. Dr. Shook previously associated sexism, modern racism, and nationalism with 2016 presidential vote choice (Shook et al., 2020). She has since surveyed a large representative sample at multiple timepoints before and after the 2020 presidential election. We seek to replicate her 2016 findings and expand the study by considering the influence of social dominance orientation (SDO), right wing authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer, 1981), and disgust sensitivity on vote choice. I also plan to employ electroencephalography (EEG) to replicate Dr. Shook’s study of biased visual attention (Oosterhoff et al., 2018), which illustrated a positive relationship between disgust sensitivity and social conservatism. Neurophysiological studies have linked neural responses to disgust-inducing stimuli and political ideology (Smith et al., 2011; Ahn et al., 2014). I look to extend this research by grounding findings in social psychology theory (e.g., SDO, RWA) and measuring explicit prejudiced attitudes (e.g., sexism, modern racism). By leveraging my advisors’ theoretical and methodological expertise and my own background in neuroimaging, I aim to conduct a comprehensive interdisciplinary investigation of neurocognitive processes underlying prejudiced political attitudes.

Mohammadamin Saraei, Psychological Sciences

Current Research: Previous research has documented the synchronization of emotional responses in the context of collective action, but the mechanisms underpinning this synchrony are unknown. We do not know whether individuals are attuned to the same stimulus; synchronize to those around them; or engage in a more dynamical interaction where each individual syncs to group-level feedback. This is crucial in terms of understanding emotional contagion as well as the role of scale (group size). To answer this question, I will conduct a naturalistic experiment at UConn’s Islamic Center (ICUC), of which I am a member. At ICUC, members regularly perform collective prayers (Salat), in which the crowd, led by a priest (Imam) engages in synchronized bowing and chanting. In this context, I will use wearable sensors to measure emotional arousal, movement, and spatial proximity between participants. This equipment is unobtrusive, and will not interfere with the natural setting of the ritual. Measurements will be obtained from groups of varying sizes.

For analysis, I will obtain a distance matrix between participants and use Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA) to measure synchrony between all pairs. This will allow me to determine whether people’s emotional responses are primarily attuned to the leader, their nearest neighbors, or to the group properties, such as the average group

Louisa Suting, Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences

Current Research: I recently concluded a pilot study that examined the effectiveness of a novel form of aphasia therapy- based on the principles of attentive reading and constraint summarization. The seven-week virtually administered therapy program was completed by five participants with post-stroke aphasia. The study was a multiple-probe, single-subject design in which each of the five participants served as their own control. Language measures included standardized tests (examining aphasia severity, reading comprehension and production, and functional communication) and spoken and written discourse measures (such as number and percent correct information units). Participants who completed the aphasia treatment demonstrated clinically significant improvement on the standardized tests and improved spoken and written discourse at micro-linguistic and macro-linguistic levels. We also collected Resting-State fMRI data at baseline, two weeks post-treatment, and again at the 5-month post-treatment in all the participants. I presented the preliminary findings of the study at the annual meeting of the Academy of Aphasia. In addition to the improvement in language and discourse measures, we also saw significant improvement in network measures, such as within network coherence in multiple resting state networks. Importantly, we found that the improvements in the coherence of the Language Network positively correlated with improvements in language measures.

Olivia Vanegas, Psychological Sciences

Current Research: My proposed project will assess the efficacy of minor cannabinoids for modulating chronic pain and emotionality. Minor cannabinoids are molecules produced by cannabis that share structural homology with the major cannabinoids THC and CBD. Pain shapes behavior in different ways. Therefore, I will use several different pain modalities (i.e., visceral, neuropathic, and inflammatory) as well as new pain-conditioned and pain-depressed measures, in addition to classic pain-stimulated measures, to guard against false positive analgesic effects. For example, I will use a Thermal Gradient Ring, which produces a range of thermal stimuli to shape stimulus-response relations in real-time, and conditioned place preference, which uses repeated drug/environment pairings to assess more subtle, context-specific pain effects and abuse liability. Although chronic pain, addiction, and psychiatric disorders frequently occur concomitantly in humans, they are often studied individually in experimental animal models. Given the well-established effects of THC on emotionality and preliminary data that minor cannabinoids bind to and activate serotonin receptors, it is likely that some minor cannabinoids also reduce anxiety or depression. Thus, I am training in mouse models of anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors to screen select compounds. Overall, my research in the Kinsey lab uses a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the relationship between pain and emotionality.