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ItemThe Anterior Cingulate Cortex, Risk-Taking, & Impulsivity: A closer look into Bipolar Disorder & ADHD(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022-05) Pope, Avery ClaireThe documented presence of mental disorders has increased rapidly in the past few decades with over 51.5 million American adults diagnosed with a mental disorder in 2019 – a 1.5 million increase from 2018 (Substance, 2020). With the rise in these diagnoses, there is a greater need to understand both the neuroanatomy and symptomatology of mental illness and disorders. This study sets out to investigate one of the key behavioral deficits in both disorders-an increase in impulsivity and risk taking (Johnson et al., 2012; Lombardo et al., 2012; Najt et al., 2007; Reddy et al., 2014; Groen et al., 2013, Pollak et al., 2018). Previous research has shown the connection between gray-matter volume of the ACC, a brain area connected with impulse control, is correlated with increased potential for impulsivity; however, there are inconsistencies when considering risk-taking tasks and psychiatric disorders (Brown & Braver, 2007; Fukanaga et al., 2012; Matsuo et al., 2009). To address this gap in literature, this study offers an opportunity to further investigate the ACC’s relationship with impulsivity in the context of a formal assessment of decision-making using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Using an extensive database from the UCLA Consortium for Neuropsychiatric Phenomics (Poldrack et al., 2016), participants with Bipolar Disorder (BD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and healthy controls were analyzed using voxel-based morphometry to determine the gray matter volumes of the anterior cingulate cortex. These scores were then compared to performance on the BART and scores on Barratt’s Impulsiveness Scale (BIS). The results indicate that risk-taking is correlated with decreased left ACC volume for healthy males only, whereas BIS scores, psychiatric conditions, and gender portrayed no correlations. Using this knowledge, other brain areas are likely involved in overriding ACC control for people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. Females also seem to have a different area associated with impulse control instead of the ACC. Future studies could investigate other potential brain areas involved to develop more individualized and focused treatments for those who struggle with increased risk-taking and impulsivity.
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ItemGamma-frequency entrainment using audiovisual 40 Hz flicker(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2021-05) Gurram Thimmugari, RahulkrishnaNeural oscillations, or brain waves, are endogenous rhythms of synchronized electrical activity that are the result of communication between large groups of cortical and/or subcortical neurons. Using entrainment methodologies, neural oscillations can be exogenously modulated in a non-invasive manner. One such methodology is gamma-frequency audiovisual stimulation, referred to here as “flicker”. Building on previous work which has shown that flicker can significantly improve Alzheimer’s Disease pathology, the present work tests the effects of flicker on memory and attention in healthy adults. Using the Rapid Series Visual Presentation (RSVP) behavioral task, we found statistically significant improvements in response time as a result of 40 Hz stimulation, with an effect size (using Cohen’s d) of 0.7026 when compared to No Stimulation and 0.5233 when compared to Random stimulation. We also found that Random stimulation, which delivers the same amount of stimulation as 40 Hz but on the minute timescale (while being asynchronous at the millisecond scale), increases False Alarm Rate (FAR), which is the rate at which subjects answer “Yes” on the RSVP task when the correct answer is “No”. Using the Signal Detection Model, these results were linked to the stimulation conditions affecting either the sensory and/or decision processes through either synchroneity/asynchroneity or through a power effect, i.e., sheer amount of stimulation. However, to support these speculations about the neural processes belying the behavioral results will require neuroimaging data. The key direction to take this study in the future would be to gather neuroimaging data, likely EEG.
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ItemCharacteristic Neural Firing Profiles in Different Hippocampal Subfields for Successful and Unsuccessful Memory(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-05) Ben-Yishai, TalMemory is our ability to encode, store, retrain, and subsequently recall information and past experiences. Different areas of the brain are responsible for different aspects of memory, including the hippocampus which enables us to form, organize, and store new memories. Numerous research studies show that the hippocampal subfields are affected by memory related diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease and Schizophrenia in different ways. Understanding what the different hippocampal subfields do is important for basic science, but also for understanding neurodegenerative disorders which are associated with structural and functional abnormalities of hippocampal neurons. In order to examine the effects of memory success and failure of the firing patterns of the hippocampal neurons in the different subfields, I used a unique dataset, published by Faraut et al (2018), of a large sample of intracranial neural spiking data from humans.) and ran a hierarchical clustering algorithm on the neural firing patterns. Results suggest that the neurons in the different hippocampus subfields (CA1, CA2, CA3, and DG) have certain firing profiles which as a result causes them to group together according to these specific subfields. These firing patters were different in some degree depending on weather on successful and unsuccessful memory – and thus suggest each subfield processes memories in a different way.