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ABSTRACT Communication is vital in the context of everyday life for all organisms, but particularly so in social insects, such as Z. nevadensis. The overall lifestyle and need for altruistic acts of individuals within a colony depends primarily on intracolony chemical communication, with a focus on odorants. The perception of

ABSTRACT Communication is vital in the context of everyday life for all organisms, but particularly so in social insects, such as Z. nevadensis. The overall lifestyle and need for altruistic acts of individuals within a colony depends primarily on intracolony chemical communication, with a focus on odorants. The perception of these odorants is made possible by the chemoreceptive functions of sensilla basiconica and sensilla trichoid which exist on the antennal structure. The present study consists of both a morphological analysis and electrophysiological experiment concerning sensilla basiconica. It attempts to characterize the function of neurons present in sensilla basiconica through single sensillum recordings and contributes to existing literature by determining if a social insect, such as the dampwood termite, is able to perceive a wide spectrum of odorants despite having significantly fewer olfactory receptors than most other social insect species. Results indicated that sensilla basiconica presence significantly out-paced that of sensilla trichoid and sensilla chaetica combined, on all flagellomeres. Analysis demonstrated significant responses to all general odorants and several cuticular hydrocarbons. Combined with the knowledge of fewer olfactory receptors present in this species and their lifestyle, results may indicate a positive association between the the social complexity of an insect's lifestyle and the number of ORs the individuals within that colony possess.
ContributorsMcGlone, Taylor (Author) / Liebig, Juergen (Thesis director) / Ghaninia, Majid (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-05
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It is important to consider attention when designing and conducting an experiment due to the significant impact it can have on how people process information. This study compared the influence attention can have on performance of an auditory task. Using an EEG system and measuring cortical evoked response potentials (ERPs)

It is important to consider attention when designing and conducting an experiment due to the significant impact it can have on how people process information. This study compared the influence attention can have on performance of an auditory task. Using an EEG system and measuring cortical evoked response potentials (ERPs) the assumptions about keeping eyes open during passive listening tasks which related to the low attention parameter of MMN, as well as requiring an active response for the high attention parameter of the P300 were tested. The hypotheses were that the presence of an active, focused component will increase the magnitude of the P300 (as is generally accepted), that the presence of an active, focused component will decrease the magnitude of the MMN (as is currently debated), and that closed eyes would diminish the magnitude of both components (as also is currently debated). The presence of significant values for both the P300 amplitude and P300 adaptive mean indicated a successful causal link between the presence of an active condition and an increased P300 waveform, while the high individual variability present throughout the data focus the scope of future study on MMN and P300.
ContributorsKonduri, Gopi (Author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis director) / Lancaster, Hope (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description

Oxymonas is a genus of Oxymonad protist found in the hindgut of drywood termites (family Kalotermitidae). Many genera of drywood termites are invasive pests globally. The hindgut microbiome of Cryptotermes brevis, the West Indian drywood termite, has not been described in detail, and only one published sequence exists of Oxymonas

Oxymonas is a genus of Oxymonad protist found in the hindgut of drywood termites (family Kalotermitidae). Many genera of drywood termites are invasive pests globally. The hindgut microbiome of Cryptotermes brevis, the West Indian drywood termite, has not been described in detail, and only one published sequence exists of Oxymonas from C. brevis. This study aims to analyze Oxymonas sequences in C. brevis from whole gut genetic material, as well as to dissect its place in phylogenetic trees of Oxymonas and how it fits into specific and evolutionary patterns. To amplify the 18S rRNA gene Oxymonas from C. brevis, the MasterPure DNA extraction kit was used, followed by PCR amplification, followed by agarose gel electrophoresis, followed by purification of the resulting gel bands, followed by ligation/transformation on to an LB agar plate, followed by cloning the resulting bacterial colonies, and topped off by colony screening. The colony screening PCR products were then sequenced in the Genomics Core, assembled in Geneious, aligned and trimmed into a phylogenetic tree, along with several long-read amplicon sequences from Oxymonas in other drywood termites. All whole gut sequences and one amplicon from C. brevis formed a single clade, sharing an ancestor with a sister clade of Oxymonas sp. from C. cavifrons and Procryptotermes leewardensis, but the other long-read fell into its own clade in a different spot on the tree. It can be conjectured that the latter sequence was contaminated and that the C. brevis clones are a monophyletic group, a notion further corroborated by a distantly related clade featuring sequences from Cryptotermes dudleyi, which in turn has a sister taxon of Oxymonas clones from C. cavifrons and P. leewardensis, pointing toward a different kind of co-diversification of the hosts and symbionts rather than cospeciation.

ContributorsSharma, Noah (Author) / Gile, Gillian (Thesis director) / Shaffer, Zachary (Committee member) / Coots, Nicole (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2023-05
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Description
Patch-clamp electrophysiology is the current gold-standard technique for obtaining high-resolution recordings of neuronal activity in vivo. However, robotic technologies recently developed to automate these labor-intensive and low-throughput experiments are limited to superficial regions of the brain or lack cell type specific-targeting (Kodandaramaiah et al., 2012; Suk et al., 2017; Annecchino

Patch-clamp electrophysiology is the current gold-standard technique for obtaining high-resolution recordings of neuronal activity in vivo. However, robotic technologies recently developed to automate these labor-intensive and low-throughput experiments are limited to superficial regions of the brain or lack cell type specific-targeting (Kodandaramaiah et al., 2012; Suk et al., 2017; Annecchino et al., 2017) . In this work, a new approach for automatically navigating patch-clamp micropipette electrodes using fluorescence feedback collected at the electrode aperture was developed and validated in vitro. In future efforts, an internal excitation source will be integrated into the system to enable micropipette navigation at any electrode-accessible depth and the system will be tested in vivo using fluorescence feedback from cell type-specific labels.
ContributorsHowell, Madeleine R. (Author) / Smith, Barbara (Thesis director) / Anderson, Trent (Committee member) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05