Matching Items (3)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: TBI
- All Subjects: AzBio Sentence Test
- All Subjects: Communication
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Description
The increase of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) cases in recent war history has increased the urgency of research regarding how veterans are affected by TBIs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of TBI on speech recognition in noise. The AzBio Sentence Test was completed for signal-to-noise ratios (S/N) from -10 dB to +15 dB for a control group of ten participants and one US military veteran with history of service-connected TBI. All participants had normal hearing sensitivity defined as thresholds of 20 dB or better at frequencies from 250-8000 Hz in addition to having tympanograms within normal limits. Comparison of the data collected on the control group versus the veteran suggested that the veteran performed worse than the majority of the control group on the AzBio Sentence Test. Further research with more participants would be beneficial to our understanding of how veterans with TBI perform on speech recognition tests in the presence of background noise.
ContributorsCorvasce, Erica Marie (Author) / Peterson, Kathleen (Thesis director) / Williams, Erica (Committee member) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Neuroinflammation is an important secondary injury response occurring after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Anxiety-like disorders are commonly exacerbated after TBI and are mediated through the amygdala; however, the amygdala remains understudied despite its important contribution in processing emotional and stressful stimuli. Therefore, we wanted to study neuroinflammation after experimental TBI using midline fluid percussion in rodent models. We assessed microglia morphology over time post-injury in two circuit related nuclei of the amygdala, the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and central amygdala of the nucleus (CeA), using skeletal analysis. We also looked at silver staining and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) to evaluate the role of neuropathology and astrocytosis to evaluate for neuroinflammation in the amygdala. We hypothesized that experimental diffuse TBI leads to microglial activation in the BLA-CeA circuitry over time post-injury due to changes in microglial morphology and increased astrocytosis in the absence of neuropathology. Microglial cell count was found to decrease in the BLA at 1 DPI before returning to sham levels by 28 DPI. No change was found in the CeA. Microglial ramification (process length/cell and endpoints/cell) was found to decrease at 1DPI compared to sham in the CeA, but not in the BLA. Silver staining and GFAP immunoreactivity did not find any evidence of neurodegeneration or activated astrocytes in the respectively. Together, these data indicate that diffuse TBI does not necessarily lead to the same microglial response in the amygdala nuclei, although an alternative mechanism for a neuroinflammatory response in the CeA likely contributes to the widespread neuronal and circuit dysfunction that occurs after TBI.
ContributorsHur, Yerin (Author) / Newbern, Jason (Thesis director) / Thomas, Theresa Currier (Committee member) / Beitchman, Joshua (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The Patient Guidance Project was created by a team of research assistants in the Arizona Cancer Evolution Center as a source of supplemental education and support for recently diagnosed cancer patients. Extensive background research in the form of literature reviews highlighted disparities between the information patients want and are receiving, as well as between average literacy levels of patients and the literacy levels at which cancer information is commonly provided. The Patient Guidance Project has published comprehensive guides for specific types of cancer, which so far include metastatic melanoma, glioblastoma, prostate cancer, oral cancer, kidney cancer, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer. The content of the guides is intended to bridge the gaps in information for patients with an emphasis on treatment options, treatment side effects, and psychological support resources, which surveys have identified as the topics patients want information on most. Written at a sixth-grade literacy level, which over half of adults in the U.S. read at, the guides are meant to be of benefit to as many people as possible. In the future, the team hopes to expand the Patient Guidance Project to include more cancer types, guides in different languages, and multimodal features to increase their effectiveness.
ContributorsWilliams, Erica (Author) / Maley, Carlo (Thesis director) / Baciu, Cristina (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-12