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- All Subjects: psychology
- All Subjects: Naloxone
Description
Environmental and genetic factors contribute to schizophrenia etiology, yet few studies have demonstrated how environmental stimuli impact genes associated with the disorder. Immediate early genes (IEGs) are of great interest to schizophrenia research because they are activated in response to physiological stress from the environment, and subsequently regulate the expression of downstream genes that are essential to neuropsychiatric function. An IEG, early growth response 3 (EGR3) has been identified as a main gene involved in a network of transcription factors implicated in schizophrenia susceptibility. The serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) seems to play an important role in schizophrenia and the dysfunction of the 5-HT2AR encoding gene, HTR2A, within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) contributes to multiple psychiatric illnesses including schizophrenia. EGR3's role as a transcription factor that is activated by environmental stimuli suggests it may regulate Htr2a transcription in response to physiological stress, thus affecting 5-HT2AR function in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between Egr3 activation and Htr2a expression after an environmental stimulus. Sleep deprivation is an acute physiological stressor that activates Egr3. Therefore to examine the relationship between Egr3 and Htr2a expression after an acute stress, wild type and Egr3 knockout mice that express EGFP under the control of the Htr2a promoter were sleep deprived for 8 hours. We used immunohistochemistry to determine the location and density of Htr2a-EGFP expression after sleep deprivation and found that Htr2a-EGFP expression was not affected by sex or subregions of the PFC. Additionally, Htr2a-EGFP expression was not affected by the loss of Egr3 or sleep deprivation within the PFC. The LPFC subregions, layers V and VI showed significantly more Htr2a-EGFP expression than layers I-III in all animals for both sleep deprivation and control conditions. Possible explanations for the lack of significant effects in this study may be the limited sample size or possible biological abnormalities in the Htr2a-EGFP mice. Nonetheless, we did successfully visualize the anatomical distribution of Htr2a in the prefrontal cortex via immunohistochemical staining. This study and future studies will provide insight into how Egr3 activation affects Htr2a expression in the PFC and how physiological stress from the environment can alter candidate schizophrenia gene function.
ContributorsSabatino, Alissa Marie (Author) / Gallitano, Amelia (Thesis director) / Hruschka, Daniel (Thesis director) / Maple, Amanda (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Some scholars have suggested that individuals are inclined to believe that they have souls because they are also inclined to believe that they have a core, immutable self. The present study will explore this question in several parts. First, what is the extent to which individuals report having a core self? Next, how do beliefs about a core self relate to belief or non-belief in an eternal soul? The final question looks at location as an extension of the core self and soul relationship. Where is the self perceived to reside within a dualistic framework, the body or the soul? This study assessed the stated beliefs of 200 respondents using Amazon Mechanical Turk as a recruiting platform. Greater belief in a core self was moderately associated with greater belief in an eternal soul (r= 0.30, p<.01), and with belief in the self as a reflection of the soul (r=0.31, p<.01) and as a reflection of the brain (r=0.21, p<.01). This suggests that belief in a core self does hold association with belief in an eternal soul. However, its perceived location seems to show little preference as residing withing the soul versus the body.
ContributorsLy, Destiny (Author) / Hruschka, Daniel (Thesis director) / Parker, John (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
More than 40% of all U.S. opioid overdose deaths in 2016 involved a prescription opioid, with more than 46 people dying every day from overdoses involving prescription opioids, (CDC, 2017). Over the years, lawmakers have implemented policies and laws to address the opioid epidemic, and many of these vary from state to state. This study will lay out the basic guidelines of common pieces of legislation. It also examines relationships between 6 state-specific prescribing or preventative laws and associated changes in opioid-related deaths using a longitudinal cross-state study design (2007-2015). Specifically, it uses a linear regression to examine changes in state-specific rates of opioid-related deaths after implementation of specific policies, and whether states implementing these policies saw smaller increases than states without these policies. Initial key findings of this study show that three policies have a statistically significant association with opioid related overdose deaths are—Good Samaritan Laws, Standing Order Laws, and Naloxone Liability Laws. Paradoxically, all three policies correlated with an increase in opioid overdose deaths between 2007 and 2016. However, after correcting for the potential spurious relationship between state-specific timing of policy implementation and death rates, two policies have a statistically significant association (alpha <0.05) with opioid overdose death rates. First, the Naloxone Liability Laws were significantly associated with changes in opioid-related deaths and was correlated with a 0.33 log increase in opioid overdose death rates, or a 29% increase. This equates to about 1.39 more deaths per year per 100,000 people. Second, the legislation that allows for 3rd Party Naloxone prescriptions correlated with a 0.33 log decrease in opioid overdose death rates, or a 29% decrease. This equates to 1.39 fewer deaths per year per 100,000 people.
ContributorsDavis, Joshua Alan (Author) / Hruschka, Daniel (Thesis director) / Gaughan, Monica (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Abstract
Objective: To assess the attitudes and knowledge of behavioral health technicians (BHTs)
towards opioid overdose management and to assess the effect of online training on opioid
overdose response on BHTs’ attitudes and knowledge, and the confidence to identify and
respond to opioid overdose situations.
Design/Methods: Pre-intervention Opioid Overdose Knowledge Scale (OOKS) and Opioid
Overdose Attitude Scale (OOAS) surveys were administered electronically to five BHTs in
2020. Data obtained were de-identified. Comparisons between responses to pre-and post-surveys questions were carried out using the standardized Wilcoxon signed-rank statistical test(z). This study was conducted in a residential treatment center (RTC) with the institutional review board's approval from Arizona State University. BHTs aged 18 years and above, working at this RTC were included in the study.
Interventions: An online training was provided on opioid overdose response (OOR) and
naloxone administration and on when to refer patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) for
medication-assisted treatment.
Results: Compared to the pre-intervention surveys, the BHTs showed significant improvements
in attitudes on the overall score on the OOAS (mean= 26.4 ± 13.1; 95% CI = 10.1 - 42.7; z =
2.02; p = 0.043) and significant improvement in knowledge on the OOKS (mean= 10.6 ± 6.5;
95% CI = 2.5 – 18.7; z =2.02, p = 0.043).
Conclusions and Relevance: Training BHTs working in an RTC on opioid overdose response is
effective in increasing attitudes and knowledge related to opioid overdose management. opioid
overdose reversal in RTCs.
Keywords: Naloxone, opioid overdose, overdose education, overdose response program
ContributorsQuie, Georgette (Author) / Guthery, Ann (Thesis advisor)
Created2021-04-12
Description
Social norms are unwritten behavioral codes. They direct individual behaviors, facilitate interpersonal coordination and cooperation, and lead to variation among human populations. Understanding how norms are maintained and how they change is critical for understanding human evolutionary psychology, social organization, and cultural change. This dissertation uses a mathematical model and a field study to answer two questions: First, what factors determine the content and dynamics of a social norm? Second, how do people make decisions in a normative context? The mathematical model finds that contrary to the popular belief that even arbitrary or deleterious social norms can be maintained once established because deviants suffer coordination failures and social sanctions, norms with continuously varying options cannot be maintained by the pressure to do what others do. Instead, continuous norms evolve to the optimum determined by environmental pressure, individual preferences, or cognitive processes. Therefore, the content of norms across human societies may be less historically constrained than previously assumed. The field study shows that unlike what rational choice theory predicts, people in a small-scale subsistence society do not calculate the ecological and social payoffs of different behaviors in a normative context, even when they have the information to do so. Instead, they rely heavily on social information about what others do. This decision-making algorithm, together with mental categorization that ignores small deviations, and cognitive biases that favor the division prescribed by the norm, maintain an ecologically inefficient and widely disliked cooperative surplus division norm in a Derung village, Dizhengdang, in Yunnan, China.
ContributorsYan, Minhua (Author) / Boyd, Robert (Thesis advisor) / Mathew, Sarah (Thesis advisor) / Hruschka, Daniel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Previous work suggests that lower-income individuals are more likely to engage in mutual aid as a means to manage risk, giving rise to a psychology that is other-oriented, including an empathetic disposition and a proclivity to help people in need. While no study has directly investigated whether helping in times of need increases dispositional empathic concern over time, this assumption is deep-seated among social psychologists. Employing a two-year longitudinal survey of US adults (N = 915), I show that people who experience more needs report helping others when in need a greater number of times, in turn leading to a small but positive increase in their empathetic disposition. This study also identifies the types of needs that elicit empathic concern (i.e., those that arise from unpredictable sources of risk), and shows why cultivating an empathetic disposition is likely to pay off in the long run: those who provide help are more likely to receive help during future times of need. Moreover, this study identifies the types of targets for whom providing help might cultivate an empathetic disposition: those with whom people are likely to share lower interdependence. While previous theoretical frameworks posit that empathic concern selectively directs investment towards interdependent others, providing help to non-interdependent targets might allow people to build positive interdependence with prospective risk pooling partners. Cultivating an empathetic disposition and building interdependence with prospective risk pooling partners can allow people to manage needs that arise from unpredictable sources of risk.
ContributorsGuevara Beltran, Diego (Author) / Aktipis, Athena (Thesis advisor) / Hruschka, Daniel (Committee member) / Kenrick, Douglas (Committee member) / Shiota, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
Objective: To assess the attitudes and knowledge of behavioral health technicians (BHTs)
towards opioid overdose management and to assess the effect of online training on opioid
overdose response on BHTs’ attitudes and knowledge, and the confidence to identify and
respond to opioid overdose situations.
Design/Methods: Pre-intervention Opioid Overdose Knowledge Scale (OOKS) and Opioid
Overdose Attitude Scale (OOAS) surveys were administered electronically to five BHTs in
2020. Data obtained were de-identified. Comparisons between responses to pre-and post-surveys
questions were carried out using the standardized Wilcoxon signed-rank statistical test(z). This
study was conducted in a residential treatment center (RTC) with the institutional review board's
approval from Arizona State University. BHTs aged 18 years and above, working at this RTC
were included in the study.
Interventions: An online training was provided on opioid overdose response (OOR) and
naloxone administration and on when to refer patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) for
medication-assisted treatment.
Results: Compared to the pre-intervention surveys, the BHTs showed significant improvements
in attitudes on the overall score on the OOAS (mean= 26.4 ± 13.1; 95% CI = 10.1 - 42.7; z =
2.02; p = 0.043) and significant improvement in knowledge on the OOKS (mean= 10.6 ± 6.5;
95% CI = 2.5 – 18.7; z =2.02, p = 0.043).
Conclusions and Relevance: Training BHTs working in an RTC on opioid overdose response is
effective in increasing attitudes and knowledge related to opioid overdose management. opioid
overdose reversal in RTCs.
ContributorsQuie, Georgette (Author) / Guthery, Ann (Thesis advisor) / Arizona State University. College of Nursing & Healthcare Innovation (Contributor)
Created2021-04-12