Respiratory tract infections are easily among the most diagnosed illnesses in modern medicine, especially involving infants and the elderly. Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) are especially dangerous, often capable of producing lasting respiratory problems, increased hospitalization, and life-threatening illness. Our research is targeted towards uncovering a possible mechanism behind the spreading of LRTIs, in hopes of illuminating the connection between the diffusion of a given virus and the speed of mucous transfer within the respiratory tract. This project more specifically focuses on a system of nonlinear ordinary and partial differential equations which simulate the diffusion and advection driven dynamics of an infected respiratory system. With a more realistic spatiotemporal approach, we hope to find possible relationships between given rates of advection and diffusion, and the depth and duration of infection; a potential framework for understanding and preventing an otherwise refractory human affliction.

The current research examined childhood environmental factors driving the development of an unpredictability schema (a mindset about the world and people in it as unpredictable) and how maintaining such a cognitive schema impacts body awareness and eating in the absence of hunger. In Study 1, low childhood SES, parenting inconsistency, and poor childhood neighborhood quality predicted development of an unpredictability schema, which predicted lower body awareness. In Study 2, participants with an unpredictability schema had lower body awareness, less mindful eating, and more self-reported eating in the absence of hunger. In Study 3, this pattern was conceptually replicated in a laboratory eating task demonstrating that participants with an unpredictability schema had lower body awareness, which predicted more eating in the absence of hunger. Together, these results suggest that development of an unpredictability schema may be an important predictor of low body awareness and eating in the absence of hunger. Although these outcomes may have historically promoted survival in unpredictable environments, they may contribute to obesity in contemporary food-rich environments.

Alternative seating is being used in classrooms around the nation, but its efficacy, especially for children that are not typically developing, has not been well-studied. This study looks at the effects of four different types of alternative seating on focus, problem solving, and feelings of calm and attentiveness as compared to a control condition. A chair was designed specifically for this study, in an attempt to better serve the needs of children with postural disorders and learning disabilities, as past research has shown that these children do not perform as well on therapy balls (Bagatell, Mirigliani, Patterson, Reyes, and Test, 2010). Two versions of this new chair were included in the study, as well as a normal chair with a weighted blanket, and a therapy ball. The participants were between five and nine years old and were asked to complete some executive functioning (EF) tasks and answer some questions about how they felt, while being videotaped so that observational data on their on-task behavior could be coded later. Meanwhile, their parents completed a questionnaire about their child, including some questions about any diagnoses the child might have. The data has not been fully analyzed yet, but I hypothesize that children with learning disabilities and postural issues will do much better on the EF tasks in the new chairs or with the weighted blanket than in the therapy ball or control condition. I anticipate that typically developing children will do better in all of the alternative seating options than in the control. Furthermore, I do not anticipate that one alternative seating option will be significantly better for every child. Rather, I hypothesize that results will vary from child to child, suggesting that each classroom should have a variety of alternative seating options, so that children can find the one that works best for them.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease currently affecting 5.5 million Americans. Moreover, the disease prevalence is expected to rise to 16 million by 2050. Characteristic AD pathology includes neurofibrillary tangles of tau protein and amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques, which correspond with a deterioration of memory and cognition in patients afflicted with AD. Aβ is a peptide resulting from cleavage of amyloid precursor protein (APP) primarily present within neuronal cell membranes. The Aβ peptide aggregates into Aβ plaques throughout the AD brain, but a brain structure impacted heavily and early on in the disease progression is the hippocampus. As mice do not naturally form plaques, our lab utilizes the 5xFAD transgenic mouse, a model of familial AD, wherein genetic mutations result in plaques and allow us to study this human AD pathology in mice. Previous research from our lab has shown that 5xFAD mice that are chronically stressed through social isolation, as opposed to typical group housing, have an increased number of hippocampal Aβ plaques. The goal of the current project was to determine whether the stress-induced increase in Aβ plaques could be prevented through exposure to physical exercise alone, or to exercise and an enriched environment throughout the period of isolation. Two-month-old mice were housed in isolation, housed in isolation with an exercise wheel, or housed in isolation with an exercise wheel and an enriched environment. After 3 months, cognition was assessed through contextual fear conditioning, and brains were collected for hippocampal Aβ plaque counts.

Terror management research has shown that, following mortality salience (MS), death-thought accessibility (DTA) and distal worldview defenses appear after a delay. However, to date, delay times for DTA and worldview defense activation have differed, with longer periods being better. While the time course is theoretically understood (Arndt, Greenberg, & Cook, 2002), the optimal time to assess DTA and worldview defense seem to differ between studies. Two experiments varied the time following MS to see when DTA (Study 1) and worldview defense (Study 2) should ideally be assessed. Participants, in both studies, were assigned to either an MS or control prime and then to one of four delay conditions (0 min, 5 min, 10 min, & 15 min). In Study 1, DTA was assessed with a lexical decision task and demonstrated strongest DTA effects at 10 min. In Study 2, worldview defense was assessed using the Moral Transgression Scale, which demonstrated that worldview defense was strongest after at 15 min. The current research is important for better understanding how to appropriately conduct TMT research, as well as clarifying potential errors with other studies.