Date Thesis Awarded

5-2009

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only

Degree Name

Bachelors of Science (BS)

Department

Neuroscience

Advisor

Pamela S. Hunt

Committee Members

Randolph A. Coleman

Christine Niehaus

Abstract

The effects of supplemental choline administration on the acquisition of trace and long-delay conditioning was examined in Sprague-Dawley rats. The first experiment documented the acquisition of fear in adolescent rats using several different conditioning procedures. In the second experiment, choline was administered on postnatal days 15-26. The subjects were then trained on postnatal day 30 using either trace or long-delay conditioning procedures. It was expected that the choline would improve hippocampus projections and facilitate the acquisition of trace conditioning. However, the results of this experiment showed that the choline had no effect on acquisition of responding, but instead promoted extinction in both the long-delay and trace conditioned rats. This effect is possibly due to the supplemental choline causing improvements of the prefrontal cortex, a region involved in extinction.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Comments

Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.

On-Campus Access Only

Share

COinS