Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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- All Subjects: Dopamine
Description
Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic musculoskeletal disorder characterized by widespread pain, fatigue, and a variety of other comorbid physiological and psychological characteristics, including a deficit of positive affect. Recently, the focus of research on the pathophysiology of FM has considered the role of a number of genomic variants. In the current manuscript, case-control analyses did not support the hypothesis that FM patients would differ from other chronic pain groups in catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) and mu-opioid receptor (OPRM1) genotype. However, evidence is provided in support of the hypothesis that functional single nucleotide polymorphisms on the COMT and OPRM1 genes would be associated with risk and resilience, respectively, in a dual processing model of pain-related positive affective regulation in FM. Forty-six female patients with a physician-confirmed diagnosis of FM completed an electronic diary that included once-daily assessments of positive affect and soft tissue pain. Multilevel modeling yielded a significant gene X environment interaction, such that individuals with met/met genotype on COMT experienced a greater decline in positive affect as daily pain increased than did either val/met or val/val individuals. A gene X environment interaction for OPRM1 also emerged, indicating that individuals with at least one asp allele were more resilient to elevations in daily pain than those homozygous for the asn allele. In sum, the findings offer researchers ample reason to further investigate the contribution of the catecholamine and opioid systems, and their associated genomic variants, to the still poorly understood experience of FM.
ContributorsFinan, Patrick Hamilton (Author) / Zautra, Alex (Thesis advisor) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Committee member) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Performance on working memory (WM) and fluid intelligence tasks (gF) is often highly correlated. However, recent research by Shipstead, Harrison, & Engle (2016) has suggested that dissociable cognitive processes underlie performance on WM and gF tasks, such that WM task performance is contingent upon maintenance of relevant information while gF task performance is contingent upon disengaging from irrelevant information so that updating can occur. The aim of the current study was to test the proposal that the dopamine gating system, a neurological mechanism underlying information encoding and updating, is a plausible mechanism underlying the abilities identified by Shipstead and colleagues that are separately unique to WM and gF. Sixty-three participants completed a task that measured ability to maintain and update information, and is neurologically known to reflect functionality of the dopamine gating system during updating performance. The results indicate that individual differences in updating performance are predicted by gF, but not by WM. This suggests that the ability to disengage from irrelevant information is facilitated by distinct processes in the dopamine gating system, and is a distinguishing component of gF.
ContributorsNespodzany, Ashley (Author) / Burleson, Mary H (Thesis advisor) / Duran, Nicholas (Committee member) / Robles-Sotelo, Elias (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017