Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics

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Rational Design, Semisynthesis, and Quantitative Biological Mechanistic Studies of Andrographolide Derivatives

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Andrographolide is a natural product extracted from the plant Andrographis paniculata, and has been shown to be incredibly versatile in biological activity. Andrographolide demonstrates anticancer, antiviral, antioxidant, and more properties, while also being relatively nontoxic. The compound has an ɑ, β unsaturated lactone, which serves as a Michael acceptor, irreversibly alkylating its protein targets. Numerous studies have been reported attempting to create novel analogs of andrographolide in order to increase efficacy, but the complexity of the compound proves to be an issue in development. We aim to build on current approaches to improving andrographolide as a drug, as well as experimenting with chemoselective modification of both the A/B trans-decalin core, which we postulate is important for target binding, and the C-ring butenolide warhead.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

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Predict Next Word: Text Generation Using LSMT in a Professional Biomedical Context

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The use of machine intelligence to facilitate daily tasks has increased substantially, such as suggestions of what may be written next in text messages, emails, and more. However, sometimes the scope of the context may be too broad and the prediction fails to generate an appropriate term. The main goal of this project is to focus on the professional biomedical context and use bidirectional long short-term memory (bi-LSTM) for text prediction. To achieve this, the model is trained with Wikipedia documents related to this field, which narrows down the ranges of vocabularies fed into it, thus increasing the accuracy and specificity of the output. When given a starter string, our language model, using machine learning algorithms, is successful in predicting the next few words in a sentence with correct usage of biomedical terminology. Extending our research further can allow for the suggestions of nomenclatures in other professional contexts as well.

Department of Biological, Human & Life Sciences

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Aggregation of Computer-Based Cognitive-Training/Personalized Brain-Care/Music-Therapy Interventions into the CognoTrain App

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Methods of CBCT/CBCR (Computer-based Cognitive Training/Rehabilitation or Brain-Care) and music therapy have shown effectiveness as a means of positive intervention for geriatric groups of Alzheimer’s dementia patients, but their development and testing occurred independent of one another. CognoTrain will function as an aggregate of these therapies to provide a holistic means of rehabilitation. Implemented CBCT measures in the app such as a mnemonic address reminder system have proven to minimize symptoms such as topographical disorientation. Alongside CBCT will be music therapy, whose interpretation as Karaoke has improved psychomotor speed in the target demographic. The combined power of these techniques would produce an unprecedented level of amelioration, introducing the possibility of a better life for more than 50 million dementia patients worldwide.

Department of Biological, Human & Life Sciences

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MCSMI Assessment: A novel psychological assessment Measuring the Creativity of Social Media Influencers

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Creative assessments are psychological assessments that measure the creativity of an individual in different categories such as art, dance, music, visual arts, literature, etc. Examples of frequently used creativity assessments are the CAQ, ICAA, TTCT, and BICF. A category that all existing creative assessments are lacking is in social media, more specifically, creative influencers. In this study, we are looking at various existing creativity assessments and creating a subset of assessment questions for creative influencers to assess the assess the creativity of these individuals.

Cindy Hsin-Yu Lee, M.A. - Guest Speaker - Stanford University School of Medicine

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Will present from her most recent published work: "Neuroanatomical Profile of Young Females with Fragile X Syndrome: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Analysis"

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Fragile X syndrome is a genetic condition associated with alterations in brain and subsequent cognitive development. However, due to a milder phenotype relative to males, females with fragile X syndrome are underrepresented in research studies. In the current study, we investigate neuroanatomical differences in young females (age range: 6.03–16.32 years) with fragile X syndrome (N = 46) as compared to age-, sex-, and verbal abilities-matched participants (comparison group; N = 35). Between-group analyses of whole-brain and regional brain volumes were assessed using voxel-based morphometry. Results demonstrate significantly larger total gray and white matter volumes in girls with fragile X syndrome compared to a matched comparison group (Ps < 0.001). In addition, the fragile X group showed significantly larger gray matter volume in a bilateral parieto-occipital cluster and a right parieto-occipital cluster (Ps < 0.001). Conversely, the fragile X group showed significantly smaller gray matter volume in the bilateral gyrus rectus (P < 0.03). Associations between these regional brain volumes and key socio-emotional variables provide insight into gene–brain–behavior relationships underlying the fragile X syndrome phenotype in females. These findings represent the first characterization of a neuroanatomical phenotype in a large sample of girls with fragile X syndrome and expand our knowledge about potential neurodevelopmental mechanisms underlying cognitive–behavioral outcomes in this condition.

Department of Biological, Human & Life Sciences

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Overview of cognitive dissonance theory with associated neuroimaging modalities

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Cognitive dissonance theory is a theory stating that when one’s attitude conflicts with their behavior, a discomfort arises in the brain. When there exists a discrepancy between someone’s external actions and their internal values, in most people this discrepancy will cause cognitive dissonance, and, to justify this dissonance, cognitive rationalization. Cognitive dissonance has been studied and measured using neuroimaging modalities, namely EEG and fMRI. Certain event-related potentials, measured by EEG, and areas of the brain, detected by fMRI, are involved primarily in cognitive dissonance and cognitive rationalization. This information can be utilized to analyze cognitive dissonance and its applications in aspects of everyday life by contrasting a positive behavior with a negative/biased attitude, as opposed to the typical model of a negative behavior and a positive/morally 'just' attitude.

Department of Biological, Human & Life Sciences

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fMRIusic: Understanding the Brain Network Associated with Measuring Accuracy of the Perception of Musical Genres With and Without Audio

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Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, known as fMRI, is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique. It utilizes BOLD signals to construct high resolution images of brain activity from subjects instructed to perform tasks or respond to stimuli within an MRI machine. By using neuroimaging tools and techniques, such as AFNI and Freesurfer, we will preprocess and analyze a fMRI dataset obtained from the Psychoinformatics Lab at the University of Magdeburg in Germany. The dataset comes from fMRI scans of 20 participants who were shown clips of the movie “Forrest Gump” with different genres of music featured in the movie, such as Country, Symphonic, and 50s Rock’n’Roll. The participants were asked to guess the genre of a piece of music with and without audio. The aim of our research is to identify the networks of the brain associated with guessing a music genre correctly without audio. In previous studies, researchers have gathered a large amount of data regarding the functions and growth of our auditory network. One key aspect of the network is its relation to music and the effects music has on the brain. Both playing and listening to music have been found to increase the plasticity and strength of the brain. These activities also trigger reactions that are only achievable through musical stimulus. We aim to understand and explain the role of the auditory network in genre association.