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Background: Impulsivity is a strong, consistent risk factor for heavier drinking and internalizing symptoms. However, it is unclear whether certain facets of impulsivity (e.g., lack of premeditation and negative urgency) are differentially related to drinking quantity versus internalizing and whether drinking quantity and internalizing serve as mechanisms through which impulsive

Background: Impulsivity is a strong, consistent risk factor for heavier drinking and internalizing symptoms. However, it is unclear whether certain facets of impulsivity (e.g., lack of premeditation and negative urgency) are differentially related to drinking quantity versus internalizing and whether drinking quantity and internalizing serve as mechanisms through which impulsive traits confer risk for negative alcohol consequences. Method: Data are from a longitudinal study of contextual influences on alcohol response in emerging adults (N = 448, Mage = 22.27, 43.5% female). Longitudinal path models in Mplus tested whether UPPS-P impulsivity facets at T1 were prospectively associated with drinking quantity and internalizing symptoms (T2), and whether T2 drinking and internalizing symptoms mediated effects of T1 impulsivity on T3 negative alcohol consequences. Separate models were tested for positive and negative urgency and sex and age were included as model covariates. Results: Consistent with study hypotheses, T1 lack of premeditation indirectly predicted T3 negative alcohol consequences through heavier T2 drinking, whereas T1 negative urgency indirectly predicted T3 negative alcohol consequences through higher T2 stress and depressive symptoms. Contrary to hypotheses, lack of perseverance was not related to drinking quantity and alcohol use was not prospectively related to alcohol consequences. Conclusions: The current study found that distinct impulsive traits were associated with drinking quantity and internalizing symptoms, both of which conferred risk for negative alcohol consequences. Findings underscore the importance of targeting drinking behavior as well as internalizing symptomology based on the presence of specific impulsive personality traits. Such personality-centered interventions have shown promise in prior research.

ContributorsWoods-Gonzalez, Ricardo (Author) / Corbin, William (Thesis director) / Waddell, Jack (Committee member) / Su, Jinni (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2023-05
ContributorsWoods-Gonzalez, Ricardo (Author) / Corbin, William (Thesis director) / Waddell, Jack (Committee member) / Su, Jinni (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2023-05
ContributorsWoods-Gonzalez, Ricardo (Author) / Corbin, William (Thesis director) / Waddell, Jack (Committee member) / Su, Jinni (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2023-05
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Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) affects over 300 million people worldwide, with the hippocampus showing decreased volume and activity in patients with MDD. The current study investigated whether a novel preclinical model of depression, unpredictable intermittent restraint (UIR), would decrease hippocampal neuronal dendritic complexity. Adult Sprague Dawley rats (24 male, 24

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) affects over 300 million people worldwide, with the hippocampus showing decreased volume and activity in patients with MDD. The current study investigated whether a novel preclinical model of depression, unpredictable intermittent restraint (UIR), would decrease hippocampal neuronal dendritic complexity. Adult Sprague Dawley rats (24 male, 24 female) were equally divided into 4 groups: control males (CON-M), UIR males (UIR-M), control females (CON-F) and UIR females (UIR-F). UIR groups received restraint and shaking on an orbital shaker on a randomized schedule for 30 or 60 minutes/day for two to six days in a row for 26 days (21 total UIR days) before behavioral testing commenced. UIR continued and was interspersed between behavioral test days. At the end of behavioral testing, brains were processed. The behavior is published and not part of my honor’s thesis; my contribution involved quantifying and analyzing neurons in the hippocampus. Several neuronal types are found in the CA3 subregion of the hippocampus and I focused on short shaft (SS) neurons, which show different sensitivities to stress than the more common long shaft (LS) variety. Brains sections were mounted to slides and Golgi stained. SS neurons were drawn using a microscope with camera lucida attachment and quantified using the number of bifurcations and dendritic intersections as metrics for dendritic complexity in the apical and basal areas separately. The hypothesis that SS neurons in the CA3 region of the hippocampus would exhibit apical dendritic simplification in both sexes after UIR was not supported by our findings. In contrast, following UIR, SS apical dendrites were more complex in both sexes compared to controls. Although unexpected, we believe that the UIR paradigm was an effective stressor, robust enough to illicit neuronal adaptations. It appears that the time from the end of UIR to when the brain tissue was collected, or the post-stress recovery period, and/or repeated behavioral testing may have played a role in the observed increased neuronal complexity. Future studies are needed to parse out these potential effects.
ContributorsAcuna, Amanda Marie (Author) / Conrad, Cheryl (Thesis director) / Corbin, William (Committee member) / Olive, M. Foster (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12