Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

For my thesis, I conducted a study on a healthy pediatric cohort to investigate how DNA methylation of genes related to myelin may predict total white matter volume in a healthy pediatric cohort. The relatively new field of neuroimaging epigenetics investigates how methylation of genes in peripheral tissue samples is related to certain structural or functional features of the brain, as measured by neuroimaging data. Research has already demonstrated that methylation of genes in peripheral tissues is related to a variety of brain disorders. We hypothesized that methylation of myelin-related genes as measured in saliva samples would predict total white matter volume in a healthy pediatric cohort. After processing DNA methylation data from saliva samples from participants, multiple linear regressions were ran to determine if DNA methylation of myelin related genes was related to total white matter volume, as measured by data from structural MRIs. Results showed that these genes, which included MOG, MBP, and MYRF, significantly predicted total white matter volume. Two genes that were significant in our results have been previously shown to produce proteins that are essential to the structure of myelin.

This paper describes a project involving the optimization of the analysis process of FreeSurfer and ANTS Registration for neuroscience analytics of patients at risk of cognitive decline using Nipype. The paper details the process of discovering more about Nipype, learning to use a supercomputer, and implementing the open-source python code to fit the needs of the research lab. Nipype is a python-based initiative to unify the various software packages used within the neuroscience community for data analysis. This paper also serves as documentation of the steps taken to complete the project so that future students are able to continue the optimization process to result in one cohesive workflow in which data is able to flow through a unified pipeline of analysis in the future.

To mitigate climate change, carbon needs to be removed from the atmosphere and stored for thousands of years. Currently, carbon removal and storage are voluntarily procured, and longevity of storage is inconsistently defined and regulated. Clauses can be added to procurement contracts to require long-term management and increase the durability of storage. Well-designed and properly enforced contracts can pave the way to future regulation for long-term carbon management.

With millions of people living with a disease as restraining as migraines, there are no ways to diagnose them before they occur. In this study, a migraine model using nitroglycerin is used in rats to study the awake brain activity during the migraine state. In an attempt to search for a biomarker for the migraine state, we found multiple deviations in EEG brain activity across different bands. Firstly, there was a clear decrease in power in the delta, beta, alpha, and theta bands. A slight increase in power in the gamma and high frequency bands was also found, which is consistent with other pain-related studies12. Additionally, we searched for a decreased pain threshold in this deviation, in which we concluded that more data analysis is needed to eliminate the multiple potential noise influxes throughout each dataset. However, with this study we did find a clear change in brain activity, but a more detailed analysis will narrow down what this change could mean and how it impacts the migraine state.

This thesis looks to explore the common barriers and perceptions surrounding sustainable living in westernized societies. We begin by understanding and explaining the complexity and importance of sustainability. Then we go on into a cultural comparison of sustainable lifestyles from places like Mongolia and Northern Arizona. After the comparison, we look deeper into mental barriers, perceptions, and influences that western minds have on the environment and how these beliefs affect their sustainable behaviors. After noticing these obstacles, we were able to research three key solutions to overcoming these barriers: daily practices, contextual motivation, and subjective values. Using these three solutions, this thesis builds out an implementation plan that allows you to help create a more sustainable lifestyle that you can start living out today.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an irreversible brain disorder that plagues millions of people with no current cure. Current clinical research is slowly advancing to more definitive treatments in hopes of reducing the effects of progressive cognitive and behavioral decline, but none so far can slow AD’s onset. A brain area known as the nucleus incertus (NI) was recently discovered to potentially impact AD because of its connections to brain targets that degenerate; however, the NI’s role is unknown. This goal of this experiment was to use a transgenic mouse model (APP/PS1) that expresses AD pathology slowly as found in humans, and to test the mice in a variety of cognitive and anxiety assessments. Mice of both sexes and two different ages were used, with the first being young adult before AD pathology manifests (around 3-4 months old), and the second being around the cusp of when AD pathology manifests (late adult, 8-10 months old). The mice were tested in a variety of cognitive tasks that included the novel object recognition (NOR), Morris water maze (MWM), and the object placement (OP), with the latter being the focus of my thesis. Anxiety measures were taken from the open field (OF) and elevated plus maze (EPM) with the visible platform (VP) used to ensure mice could perform on the rigorous MWM task. In the OP, we found an age effect, where the older mice were less likely to explore the moved object during the OP compared to the younger mice; motor ability was unlikely to explain this effect. We did not find any significant age by genotype effects. These findings indicate that cognitive impairment only just started to affect the older cohort, since OP impairment was found on one measure and not another. Other measures currently being quantified will be helpful in understanding this data, and to see whether learning, memory, and anxiety are affected.

The clothing and textile industry is often referred to as one of the largest polluters in the world. Over the last two decades, global annual consumption has increased, and the volume of discarded clothing in America has doubled from 7 to 14 million tons a year (Shirvanimoghaddam, 2020). Over 60% of textile waste overall is exported to the Global South. In the Global South, landfills that receive this waste often lack proper funding and legislation to implement effective waste management systems (Schiros). Textile waste bears a carbon and water footprint that disrupts environmental and health standards on egregious levels, disproportionately harming the health of the populations situated near to those disposal sites, and preventing so-called “developing populations” from economic independence and from sustaining critical environmental health standards. The exploitation of the Global South as a dumping ground also erodes the possibility of economic development by local production and economic self-reliance. Structural adjustments and trade regulated by the ‘developed’ country subjugate the Global South to neo-colonialist, exploitative economic partnerships with the Global North. Rwanda is one example of a country attempting to rise to the World Bank’s classification as a middle-income country, but has been accused of trading human rights for development in the process.

My investigation first seeks to answer, What are the specific health threats of post-consumer textiles? I consider the human health impacts of textiles from cultivation to disposal. This study examines the role of waste as a potential function in the production process, where waste is not considered a negative economic value. My second question is How is the Global South's participation in international collaboration empowered by acts of resistance against the assumptions, research, and policies that suggest Western aid and medicine is superior and the basis for innovative technology? Acts of resistance are pursued within the public sphere (especially in terms of community building and art making), low technology, and locally situated science (that consider the culture, approach, and resources of the Global South before scaling up to the North). Corporations and state policy are considered to expand research, but the focus is largely on acts of resistance by the public, and acts of resistance at a community-level of cooperation. Through the framework of the zine, audiences can better understand the relationship between the US and countries in the East African Community, in South Africa, in shared regions. This creative project informs and challenges the reader to think critically about their role in a postcolonial context. I seek to understand how colonialism pervades the economic relationship and import-export business today between the Global North and the Global South. My purpose is to provide the reader with a vision that suggests the most critical changes that should be made to secure humane and environmentally sustainable solutions. It also serves as a catalyst for additional research on the Global South.