skip to main content

Explore Research Products in the NSF-PAR

  • Home
  • Search Results
  • Page 1 of 1

Search for: All records

Creators/Authors contains: "Cummings, Jennifer"

Note: When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
What is a DOI Number?

Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.

  1. ; ; ; ( , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

    Our state of arousal can significantly affect our ability to make optimal decisions, judgments, and actions in real-world dynamic environments. The Yerkes–Dodson law, which posits an inverse-U relationship between arousal and task performance, suggests that there is a state of arousal that is optimal for behavioral performance in a given task. Here we show that we can use online neurofeedback to shift an individual’s arousal from the right side of the Yerkes–Dodson curve to the left toward a state of improved performance. Specifically, we use a brain–computer interface (BCI) that uses information in the EEG to generate a neurofeedback signal that dynamically adjusts an individual’s arousal state when they are engaged in a boundary-avoidance task (BAT). The BAT is a demanding sensory-motor task paradigm that we implement as an aerial navigation task in virtual reality and which creates cognitive conditions that escalate arousal and quickly results in task failure (e.g., missing or crashing into the boundary). We demonstrate that task performance, measured as time and distance over which the subject can navigate before failure, is significantly increased when veridical neurofeedback is provided. Simultaneous measurements of pupil dilation and heart-rate variability show that the neurofeedback indeed reduces arousal. Our work demonstrates a BCI system that uses online neurofeedback to shift arousal state and increase task performance in accordance with the Yerkes–Dodson law.

     
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ( , British Journal of Pharmacology)
    Background and Purpose

    Females are more sensitive than males to both the acute and prolonged effects of psychomotor stimulants. In females, this is regulated by oestradiol, which enhances dopamine release in the dorsal striatum. In this study, we tested the acute effect of oestradiol on dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) shell after cocaine administration and investigated which oestradiol receptors (ERs) contribute to sex differences in the response to cocaine.

     Experimental Approach

    The ability of oestradiol benzoate (EB) to acutely modulate the effect of cocaine on phasic dopamine release in the NAc shell was measured by fast‐scan cyclic voltammetry in anaesthetized male and female rats. The roles of ER subtypes, ERα and ERβ, was determined with selective agonists.

     Key Results

    EB acutely enhanced the effect of cocaine on stimulated dopamine release from the NAc shell in females but not in male rats only at levels of stimulation expected to optimally saturate dopamine transporters. Enhanced dopamine release after cocaine administration was also observed in females after selective activation of ERβ but not ERα. EB attenuated the effect of cocaine on NAc shell dopamine reuptake in males but not in females.

     Conclusions and Implications

    Oestradiol acutely and rapidly regulates dopamine release in females and dopamine reuptake in males. In females, oestradiol rapidly enhances the effect of cocaine on dopamine release, likelyviaactivation of ERβ. The effect of oestradiol in males is not seen with selective receptor subtype activation, a topic deserving of further study.

     LINKED ARTICLES

    This article is part of a themed section on The Importance of Sex Differences in Pharmacology Research. To view the other articles in this section visithttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bph.v176.21/issuetoc

     
    more » « less