Check out our mentors below who have made research for our undergraduates possible! Click each blue bar to expand all details, including lab links and past Distinction project titles
- Pre-Learning Affective States and Trait Anxiety Impact Learning from Error
- Learning from Prediction Error: The Impact of Perfectionism, Anxiety and Perspectives on Learning
- Down the Rabbit Hole: The Self-Perpetuating Properties of Curiosity and Its Influence on Memory
- Multilingualism, Literacy, and Cultural Preservation in Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the Diaspora
- Electrophysiological Analysis of Lifelong Musicianship: a New Approach using Dry EEG
- Brain Activity: A Dry EEG Neuroimaging Approach within a Semiotic Framework
- The Neural Impact of College Athletics: The Effect of Physical Activity on Resting State EEG
- A Multivariate Perspective into Risk for Alzheimer's Disease using Small Animal Models
- Childhood Adversity, Acute Stress and Working Memory in Children and Adolescents
- The Impact of Electronic Input on the Language Learning of Visually Impaired, Hearing Impaired, and Typically Developing Infants
- Intraoperative EEG Pre-Burst Suppression as a Predictor of Postoperative Delirium
- APOE2 Effects on Alzheimer's Disease Biomarkers and Cognition
- Neuroimmune Regulation of Dopaminergic Circuitry throughout Adolescent in the Dorsal Striatum
- The Role of Inflammation in Maternal Diet-Induced Sex-Specific Behavioral Differences
- Impacts of Maternal Mouse Diet
- Healing the Brain by Healing the Gut: Microbiome Modulation Prevents Social Behavior Deficits following Prenatal Exposure to Environmental Stressors
- Cross-Fostering Influences the Effects of Air Pollution and Prenatal Stress on Social Behavior
- The Microglia of the Guy? Maternal Prenatal Exposure to Environmental Stressors Alters Intestinal Macrophage Populations in Male Offspring
- Exploring the Effects of IL34 Knockout on Microglia in Male and Female Adult Mice
- Central MYD88 Signaling and Alcohol Consumption
- The Impact of Ablated Microglial MYD88 Signaling on Neurodevelopment
- Adolescent Social Isolation Impacts the Development of Dopaminergic Circuitry within the Ventral Tegmental Area and Substantia Nigra of Female Rats
- The Effect of Prenatal Toxin, Sleep Deprivation, and Social Stress on Neuroimmune Activation
- Neural Activity Dictates Interleukin-34 Expressions in Brains of Adult Mice
- Impact of Adolescent Social Isolation on Microglia-Dopamine Interactions
- Microglial Gene Network Analysis in the Nucleus Accumbens of Mice Prenatally Exposed to Diesel Exhaust Particles and Maternal Stress
- A Neural Pathway for Microbial Signaling from the Gut
- Exploring the Role of Neuropod Cells in Gut Reward and Obesity
- Learning Behavioral Sequences in a Cortico-Striatal Network using Hebbian and Reward-based Learning
- DYT1 Dystonia Impairs eIF2A Signaling through Nuclear Sequestration of the Proteasome
- Identifying Motor Cortical Neural Ensembles Associated with Habit Learning
- Investigating how the CNS Engages Alpha-Cell GPCRs to Initiate Glucagon Secretion during Counter Regulation of Hypoglycemia
- The N170 in Co-Occurring Autism and Attention-Deficit /Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- Investigating Macular Edema in Preterm Infants by Examining Microvascular Patterns using OCT-Angiography
- Exploring the Mechanistic Role of A-synuclein in the Nucleus: Insights from Familiar Parkinson's Disease
- The Role of DNA Methylation at SNCA Intron1 in Gene Regulation: Mechanistic Understanding of Parkinson's and Implications for Gene Therapy
- Autonomous Brain Tumor Boundary Identification in Secondary Brain Metastases
- Transporters in the SAM Cycle: A Possible Mechanism Behind Tau Hyperphosphorylation in Alzheimer's Disease
- How does Cross-Hemispheric Connectivity Impact Cognition in Healthy and MCI-AD Older Adults?
- The Structural Correlates of Moral Foundation in Younger Children and Older Adults
- Investigating Age-Related Differences in Moral Judgments and Resting-State Functional Connectivity
- Eye Tracking the Mental Simulation and Counterfactual Reasoning in Developing Casual Judgment for Children Ages Five to Seven
- Early Motor and Communications Indicators of Autism and ADHD and Prediction of Later Skills Based on Home Video Coding at 12 Months
- The Role of Harsh Parenting and Maternal Depression on Executive Function in Early Childhood
- Behavioral Characterization of Humanized Mice: A Platform to Understand Chronic Graft- Versus Host Disease-Associated Pain?
- STING Signaling in Peripheral Sensory Neurons Confers Protective Immunity against Listeria Monocytogenes Infection
- Oxytocin and Vasopressin 1A Receptor Neuroanatomy in Monogamous and Non-Monogamous Eulemur Species
- Brain-Wide Spatiotemporal Dynamics Underlying Depression
- Neural Evidence of Control State Reinstatement: an fMRI Study
- Influence of Threat and Anxiety on Cognitive Map Learning
- Discovery of a Novel Mechanism in Astrocyte-Microglia Crosstalk
- The Effect of Histone Modification in Regulating Astrocyte Development
- Elucidating the Molecular Mechanisms of Drp1 Regulation in Astrocyte Morphogenesis
- The Impact of AIs-Associated OPTN Mutants on Wild-Type OPTN
- Exploring APoE-Mimetic Peptide CN-105 as a Potential Treatment for Spinal Cord Injury in Mice
- Neurodevelopment Effects of Thyroid Hormone Disruption from PFAS Exposure: The Placental Link between Environment and Fetal Brain
- Assessing the Efficacy of Immunotherapy in Mouse Models of Brain Metastasis
- Asymmetry in Manual Exposures during Naturalistic, Caregiver-Infant Play and Communication Development in 9-24-Month-Old Infants and Toddlers
- Resting-State Functional Connectivity of the Ventral Attention Network and Non-Clinical Anxiety in Early Childhood
- Amygdala-mPFC Functional Connectivity and its Relationship to Emotion Regulation in Preschool-Aged Children
- Multiple Identity Mindset, Flexible Thinking, and Cross-Race Interactions
- Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) Levels
- Muscarinic Influence on Cortical Interneuron Excitability
- Automatic Segmentation of Patient-Specific Anatomy for AR-Assisted Neurosurgery
- RSAD1 in Alzheimer's Disease
- Analyzing the Effects of TOMM40 Poly-T Variants on the ApoE-TOMM40 Gene Cluster
- Toward Elucidating Rsad1: Protocol Perspectives
- A Finite Element Analysis Model of Deep Brain Stimulation with Complex Lead Geometry
- Thriving or Declining: Predicting Burnout in College Students
- Is Sleep Reflected in the Brain: Functional Connectivity Patterns and Disordered Sleep
- Graph Theoretical Analysis of fMRI: Test-Retest Reliability of Common and Innovative Approaches to Network Neuroscience
- An Analysis of French and English Indo-Caribbean Literary Depiction of Indentured Servitude and its Associated Neurological Implications
- Cis-Regulatory Elements in HIV-Based Vector Transcription
- Auditory Emotion Recognition in Individuals at High Risk for Psychosis
- Understanding Brain Cancer with RNA Sequencing: A Single-Cell Approach
- Novel In-Vivo Fast Scan Cyclic Voltammetry Method Quantitates Phasic and Tonic Dopamine, MDPV Simultaneously in Adult and Adolescent Rats
- Emotional Regulation of Moral Memories
- Neurobehavioral Toxic Effect of Cadmium and Benzo[a]pyrene on Rats and Offspring
- Validating a Novel and Language-neutral Neurocognitive Screening Test for Alzheimer's Disease (AD)
- Quantifying the Association between Oculomotor Response and Sub-Concussive Loading among High School Football Players using Deep Learning
- Oculomotor Responses as an Assessment for Subconcussive Loading in the Pediatric Population
- The Neurobiological Relationships among Sleep, Stress, and Physical Activity in College Students
- Peptide Uncoupling of Trkß from Phospholipase Cý1 in the Pilocarpine Model of Status Epilepticus
- Investigating a Potential Mechanism for the Progression of Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood: Age-dependent Na+/K+-ATPase Activity and Behavioral Symptoms in Mashl+/- (Atp1a3Mashl/+) mice
- Impacts of mTBI and Subconcussive Head Injury in Military Veterans
- More than an Increase in Sea Levels: The Impact of Climate Change on Mental Illness Prevalence
- Generation and Validation of a Novel Adipocyte-Specific Adrb3KO Mouse Model
- Development of the Optomotor Response in Dark-Reared Larval Zebrafish
- The Discovery of Novel, Selective Human Olfactory Receptor 51E2 Antagonists: Implications in Olfaction and Beyond
- Neural Dynamics of Phonetic Adaptation under Different Attention Conditions
- The Role of Surveillance MRI in Pediatric-onset NMOSD and MOGAD: a Retrospective Cohort Study
Dr. Prichard is a new investigator in our system and has not yet mentored a senior thesis. Check out her exciting research profile and research opportunities--you might be her first senior thesis student!
Prichard Lab Blurb
Our lab studies how new noninvasive therapies for Alzheimer's disease affect learning, memory, and neuroimmune responses in the brain using translational rodent models. The current research project examines noninvasive audiovisual neurostimulation's effects on pathology in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. Noninvasive neurostimulation or "flicker" or "sensory stimulation" etc. has neuroprotective effects and engages the brain’s immune system to reduce neuropathology. We measure Flicker's effects on translational rodent models of Alzheimer's disease using methods in immunohistochemistry, confocal microscopy, cellular quantification, and behavioral measures.
An overview of the Prichard Lab can be found on the website www.ashleyprichard.com
Research Opportunities
Our lab is looking for motivated students interested in helping us to study how new noninvasive therapies for Alzheimer's disease affect learning, memory, and neuroimmune responses in the rodent brain. Students will assist with building and testing circuits, wet bench work, analysis of cellular imaging data, collection of rodent behavioral data, and statistical analysis.
Project 1: Cellular Imaging Research: This position will assist in designing and utilizing cellular analysis protocols. After flicker stimulation, mouse brain samples will be cryosectioned, stained using immunohistochemistry, imaged on the confocal microscope, and quantified in ImageJ software (open source available anywhere) and cells reconstructed in Imaris software (available in person at Duke or virtually at the Atlanta VAMC for now). While protocol documentation exists within the lab, testing and refining protocols is always a possibility. Most of this work will be done in person for using Imaris software
Project 2: Noninvasive Neurostimulation/ Engineering Research
Creating/ Implementing LED and Auditory based Flicker stimulation: This position will assist in designing and utilizing flicker stimulation. Auto-flicker is controlled by an arduino microcontroller and/ or a NIDAQ via MATLAB code to deliver flickering light and sound stimulation at different frequencies (10, 20, 40Hz etc.) for specific durations (e.g. 1 hour per day for 7 days). This exposure setup must be created at the Durham VAMC including the soldering and testing of simple circuits, execution of code on the Arduino or NIDAQ, and confirmation that stimulation has occurred at the same time every day for experimental consistency.
Project 3: Vasculature Morphology Reconstruction of iDisco cleared mouse brains
Whole Brain Vasculature Imaging Research: This position will assist in designing and utilizing vasculature reconstruction protocols. After flicker stimulation, mouse brain samples will be cleared of all pigment, stained using immunohistochemistry, imaged on the mitryl blaze microscope at Emory University, and quantified in Imaris software (available in person at Duke or virtually at Emory University for now). While protocol documentation exists within the lab, whole brain analysis is new, so testing and refining protocols is required.
Project 4: Vasculature Morphology Machine Learning Analysis
Whole Brain Vasculature Imaging Research: This position will assist in designing and utilizing vasculature analysis protocols. After flicker stimulation, mouse brain samples will be quantified in Imaris software in Project 3. This results in GB to TB of data which needs to be quantified. Some machine learning approaches are available but have yet to be tested by the lab. Experience with coding is a must. Below articles for reference.
https://www.erturk-lab.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Todorov-Erturk-Nature-Methods-2020March.pdf
https://academic.oup.com/bioinformatics/article/39/4/btad145/7083435?login=false
Location Information
The majority of this work will be in person at Building 15 of the Durham VA Medical Center at 508 Fulton Street.
Parking is available for volunteers (not research for credit folks currently) and the building is within walking distance from the Duke campus. Participation in any research in person at the Durham VA requires credentialing including lab safety training, biosafety training, and working with the IACUC Citi training. All participation in research at the VA in person requires a background and credentialing process that may take up to 2 months*
- Tonic Immobility Knowledge, Sexual Assault Related PTSD Symptom Impact, and the Peritraumatic Tonic Immobility PTSD Treatment Model
- Dopamine Modulation of Preferences for Equity in Economic Exchange
- Individual Differences in Grit and Physical Activity
- Drugs, Dopamine, and Dollars: Subjective Responses to Dextro-amphetamine are related to fMRI Anticipatory Responses to Monetary Reward
- Examining the Effectiveness of Neural and Behavioral Predictors of Physical Activity
- Digital Neurointerventions: Self-Efficacy, Subclinical Depression and Motivating Physical Activity
- Childhood Trauma and Memory: Exploring the Time-dependent Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Epidosic Memory Performance
- Neutrophil Dectin-1 Signaling Negatively Regulates T Cell Proliferation
- Investigating ASC Isoforms in Astrocytes
- Studying the Impact of Lung Inflammation on CNS Resident Cells
- A Novel Link between Mitochondrial Energy Metabolism and Ubiquitin Conjugase Rad6
- The Role of Eif4a3 in Axonal Development
- Resilience and Psychological Functioning in the Context of Infertility
- The Neuroendocrinological Underpinnings of Affective Responding within Anhedonia
- Associations between EEG Microstates and Self-Compassion Scores during Meditation and Rest
- Uncovering Protein Localization at Inhibitory Synapses
- Developing Transsynaptic Tracing for Exploring Interneuron Transplantation in a Seizure Model
- The Effects of Adolescent Intermittent Ethanol Exposure on a Memory-Related Hippocampal Circuit
- Hippocampal-Hypothalamic Circuit that Mediates Anxiety-Like Behavior
- Neural Correlates of Social Reward in Smoking and Depression
- The Role of Abelson (ABL) Family Kinases in Medulloblastoma Cell Invasion, Proliferation, and Migration
- Optineurin Attenuates Oxidative Stress in Glaucomatous Neurodegeneration
- Generation of Nuclear-Localized Rabies Virus for Dissection of Adult Cortical Circuits
- The Involvement of IG Superfamily Cell Adhesion Molecules in the Development of Olfactory Circuit Architecture
- Role of SMARCAL1 in Pediatric Malignant Gliomas with ARTX Mutations
- Identification and Characterization of STAT3 Post Translation Modifications in the U251 Glioblastoma Cell Line
- Utilizing Novel Epigenomic Editing Tools to Regulate the Expression of the Immediate Early Gene Arc
- Exploring the Proteomic Implications of Therapeutic Intervention with Physical Activity in a Female Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease
- The Role of Arginine Bioavailability and Exercise in a Female Model of Menopause and Alzheimer's Disease
- Neuroprotective Effects of Exercise on Dysfunctional Cognition and Ceramide Metabolism in a Female Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease
- Observing the Microglial Response to Alzheimer's Pathology in Chronically Exercised and Menopause Model Mice
- The Effects of Exercise Amount and Type on Behavioral Impairments, Brain Structure, and Connectivity in the Female CVN Model of Alzheimer's Disease
- The Role of Aging and Tryptophan Hydroxylase 2 (TPH2) on Inflammation in a Mouse Model of Depression
- Does Spontaneous Prestimulus Alpha Power Support Conscious Visual Perception? A Meta-Analysis
- Disambiguating the Neural Processes Underlying Expectancy and Reward-Feedback Processing
- Investigating the Neural Mechanisms by which Perceived Value Impacts Prospective Memory
- The Learning of Reward Associations Bases on Spatial Location
- Spatial Learning Differences between Male and Female Drosophila
- Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Use of Sensory Feedback during Fine Motor Behavior
- Regulation of Multimodal Orienting Behavior to Targets in Egocentric Space by the Superior Colliculus
- The Role of Globus Pallidus Externa in Regulating Movement
- Forelimb Receiving Striatal Spiny Projection Neurons Steer Reach Trajectory
- Using Visualization to Reduce Test Anxiety in Collegiate Student Anxiety
- Freshmen Attitudes towards Mental Health Treatment: The Effects of Psychoeducational Dialogues