Browsing by Subject "Neurons"
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Item Connections To Histamine Neurons That Underlie Wakefulness(2010) Turnbull, Erica Louise; Hoffman, Gloria E.; Biology; Master of ScienceHistamine neurons are located in the posterior hypothalamus of the brain, specifically the tuberomammillary nuclei. These neurons play a fundamental role in arousal. This project addresses the question of what regulates histamine neurons in order for them to effect arousal. There are two main signals that prompt wakefulness: the daily rhythm of the biological clock (suprachiasmatic nucleus, SCN, that contain vasopressin and vasoactive intestinal polypetide, VIP) and arousal after external stimuli (brainstem reticular activating system: which express the noradrenergic markers, dopamine beta hydroxylase (DBH) and neuropeptide Y (NPY)). Understanding if either or both systems innervate histamine neurons could provide an explanation of how histamine neurons promote wakefulness. Using immunocytochemical techniques to co-localize histamine neurons and axons from neurons within the SCN (vasopressin or VIP) and brainstem catecholamine neurons (DBH or NPY), this project aims to identify in rat brain whether either or both of the two possible regulatory systems innervate the histamine neurons. The results of the study showed that vasopressin neurons of the SCN send axons to the dorsal and ventral tuberomammillary histamine neurons; however, neurons containing VIP had no axon projections in this area. The catecholamine neurons containing both dopamine beta hydroxylase and neuropeptide Y sent axons to the ventral and dorsal tuberomammillary nuclei. Collectively, these data indicate that both dorsal and ventral histamine neurons are connected to regions of the brain that are involved in timing and arousal.Item The Migration of Sensory Neurons Following Chemical-Genetic B-Cell Ablation in Danio reno Larvae(2018) Rocker, Amanda; Biological SciencesPeripheral nerves act as a vital bridge between the environment and the brain; environmental information is received by sensory neurons and transported, through electrical impulses, along axons to the central nervous system (CNS). The brain processes the information and sends a response back to target organs or muscles through motor axons. When any component of the peripheral nerve is damaged a condition called peripheral neuropathy can develop. This condition often presents in the form of numbness, aching, and burning in the extremities as a result of the nerve damage. One specific cause of peripheral neuropathy is hyperglycemia, an excess of blood glucose which is often associated with diabetes. Damage may be present in both the sensory and motor nerves that make up the peripheral nervous system (PNS), diminishing the ability of those affected to interact with their environment. Preliminary data from the Clark lab suggests that sensory neurons migrate away from their origins at the dorsal root ganglia (DRG). Based upon this work and the knowledge that nerve changes occur in correspondence to hyperglycemia, I hypothesize that the onset of hyperglycemia by pancreatic B-cell ablation results in peripheral neuropathy. Future work will include a small molecule drug screen that may be able to provide insight on the molecular mechanisms underlying hyperglycemia-induced degeneration of the peripheral nerve. Additionally, I plan to study how hyperglycemia presents in the CNS utilizing the same model system.Item SoccerMate: A Personal Soccer Attribute Profiler using Wearables(IEEE, 2017-05-04) Hossain, H M Sajjad; Khan, Md Abdullah Al Hafiz; Roy, NirmalyaThe use of smartphone and wearable devices in various sporting events is an optimistic opportunity to profile player's physical fitness and physiological health conditioning attributes. Recently a variety of commercial wearables with respect to different sports are available in the market. As these wearables differ for distinctive sports, it becomes a hassle to effectively profile them for multiple sports sessions in day to day practice events. Wrist worn devices like smartwatches are becoming a trend in sports analytics recently and researchers are leveraging them to infer various contexts of the players to improve the quality, tactics, strategy of playing matches against the opponents. Visual observation is the most popular way to track a player's abilities in soccer, but as a player it is not always possible to self-assess your own strengths and weaknesses in a field. In this paper, we propose to exploit the wrist worn devices with built in accelerometer to help represent attributes of technical judgement, tactical awareness and physical aspects of a soccer player. We propose to use deep learning to build our classification model which analyzes different soccer events like in-possession, pass, kick, sprint, run and dribbling. Based on these soccer events, we evaluate the overall ability of a soccer player. Our experiments show that, these wearable technology guided attributes profiling can help a coach or scout to better understand the competence of a player in addition to traditional visual observation