Down syndrome--Patients; Williams syndrome--Patients; Social interaction in children; Social perception in children
The present project examined the regulatory function of social referencing in two neurodevelopmental disorders that have been well defined genetically and are characterized by differing patterns of socio-cognitive development: Down syndrome (DS)...
Evidence suggests that cortical minicolumns are reduced in size and increased in number in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). More specifically minicolumns in individuals with...
This dissertation focuses on the mechanisms and implications of perceptual learning of binocular interactions. Perceptual learning is an important means of adapting to the changing environment, demonstrating the possibility of neural plasticity in...
Previous research has indicated the important role of visual information in the speech perception process. These studies have elucidated the areas of the brain involved in the processing of audiovisual stimuli. The McGurk effect, an audiovisual...
Electroencephalography; Visual evoked response; Drug addicts--Research
In 2006 it was estimated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA, 2007) that 19.9 million Americans used illicit drugs, computing to roughly 8.0 % of the United States population. In 2007, there were 2.1 million...
In the retina, the receptive fields (RFs) of most neurons are comprised of an excitatory center and a suppressive surround. Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) RF center excitatory input arises from bipolar cell (BC) inputs, while their surround arises...
When observers view a naturalistic (l/f) broadband image, the various spatial components present in the image stimulate many detecting-mechanisms that suppress each other. This suppression is anisotropic, being relatively greater for mechanisms...
Through differential display PCR, Munc13-3 was identified as a gene whose relative expression in the visual cortex corresponds to critical period plasticity. Expression of the gene was low at the peak of the critical period and expression was high...
Anxiety in children; Anxiety--Physiological aspects
Anxiety disorders are prevalent in both adult and child populations, and are associated with significant economic and psychosocial costs. There are clearly familial patterns of transmission within the anxiety disorders, and the inherited risk is...
Eating disorders in children; Behavior modification
Feeding disorders occur when a child rejects significant amounts of food or drink. Food refusals are maintained by factors which may be behavioral based, due to structural impairments, or a combination of the two. One of the first steps to...
Neuropsychology; Motor ability; Eye-hand coordination
Two major theoretical models, Direct Mapping and Functional Equivalence, suggest that the observation of action and imagery of action, respectively, involve activation of similar motor related areas. Despite the wealth of evidence that supports...
Recently our lab has shown that with broadband stimuli (either visual noise or natural scenes), performance for detecting oriented content is worst at horizontal, best at the obliques, and intermediate at vertical orientations--an anisotropy...
Narrative causal understanding is related to a variety of school-related skills such as reading comprehension, and memory. Previous research shows a developmental trend in the ability to use and understand causal connections that begins at age 4...
Speech intelligibility has been found to improve with prior exposure to a reverberant room environment. It is believed that perceptual mechanisms help maintain accurate speech perception under these adverse conditions. Potential factors underlying...
The goals of this dissertation is to further the understanding of the roles of two genes identified by differential display polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) of cat visual cortex as candidate genes to play a role in visual cortical plasticity....
This work examines our perception of distance within "action space" (about 2m ~ 30m), an ability that is important for various actions. Two general problems are addressed: what information can be used to judge distance accurately and how...
Cardiology--Research--Methodology; Microfluidics--Equipment and supplies
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States and accounts for nearly 1,372,000 deaths each year. In addition, ~81 million Americans suffer from some form of CVD. Understanding the molecular basis of various...
Introduction: Children diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often lack the ability to recognize and properly respond to emotional stimuli. These emotional deficits are also observed in children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity...
It is not the primary purpose of this present work to treat the problem of the evolution of behavior, but rather to give an analysis of animal behavior as observed. These observations may appear as simple tests, but they make possible a new way to...
Here, I address the function of the carboxy-terminal hydrophobic helix of the pro-apoptotic protein Bax. There has been considerable controversy as to whether this sequence is required for the targeting and insertion of Bax into the mitochondrial...
