Category: 2022

Electromyography Markers of Global Motor Inhibition While Stopping

Presenter: Isaiah Mills – Human Physiology

Faculty Mentor(s): Ian Greenhouse, Mitchell Fisher

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

Stopping individual parts of complex movement plans is a critical part of controlling our bodies. While humans can coordinate movements effectively, our brains have limitations in selective stopping ability. Cancelling one action can affect other simultaneous actions, especially when these actions are bimanual. In one stopping task where participants had to cancel one finger movement while continuing a movement with the other hand, the executed lift was delayed from the target reaction time. This is thought to be caused by a neural pathway which nonselectively inhibits all actions before restarting continuing actions. Here, we record the activation of little finger muscles using electromyography during tonic muscle contraction. Subjects hold contraction as they perform a similar task involving timing bimanual index finger movements to a target time. During stop trials where one or both movements are inhibited we hypothesize that the amplitude of tonic EMG will decrease representing nonselective motor inhibition. Preliminary data analysis supports this hypothesis. This data will help us understand how healthy control of movement is facilitated by the brain, and during what period following a stop signal this network is actively suppressing movement. Patients who suffer from movement disorders like Parkinson’s struggle to control inhibitory processes, and we hope to learn more about the disease and how it affects these pathways by comparing healthy datasets to disease state.

The mechanics of pressurized thin shells with varying geometries.

Presenter: Alena Mcvicker – Physics

Faculty Mentor(s): Jayson Paulose, Saul Sun

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

The mechanics of thin elastic shells underpins the structural behavior of ping pong balls, bacterial cell walls, and the outer protein capsules of viruses. Thin shell mechanics is determined by two separate areas of math and physics: the geometry of two-dimensional surfaces and the elasticity of continuum materials. One way to probe these effects experimentally is using indentation: poking a shell with a known force and measuring the displacement. Using geometry and elasticity, we can predict the responses of different shells based on many factors. Indentation studies give us a better understanding of their mechanics and the ability to build off the knowledge to develop tools for diagnostics. With this broad understanding of the project, my contribution is based on the fabrication of thin shells with specific geometries and then the measurement of the indentation of these shells. The goal is to show whether experimental measurements will reproduce theoretical results from the Paulose group. This research is comprised of two integral parts. First, we will fabricate shells with defined ellipsoidal geometries (shaped like M&Ms or footballs). To do so I will design molds in the desired shapes and get them 3d-printed at the UO Technical Science Administration. We then use a steel plate and base to hold down the shell which allows us to pressurize the shells. Through these methods we can see that thin shells have counterintuitive reactions to pressurization seen in their geometry.

Creating an Educational Graphic Novel about Psychedelics

Presenter: Audra McNamee – Mathematics and Computer Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Luca Mazzucato

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

Scientific communication through the use of comics is an emerging trend across scientific disciplines. Comics are a promising medium for outreach because they appeal to non-scientifically trained audiences, hold the reader’s attention, and the storytelling approach lends itself to explaining complex scientific information. Psychedelics are a promising subject for a scientific comic: psychedelics have recently been designated by the FDA as breakthrough treatment for PTSD, depression, and addiction. While the press on psychedelics is unceasing, most publications about psychedelics are focused on venture capital, psychedelic retreats, and clinical trials. Missing is an explanation of the neuroscience of psychedelics, and reflection on how the history of psychedelics intersect with racial justice and cultural appropriation of indigenous traditions and practices. We are creating a comic addressing these gaps in the science and history of psychedelics by explaining scientific material accurately and accessibly.

The comic is structured around the conversation between two friends, one of whom is very pro-psychedelics, the other being staunchly anti-psychedelics. Having the comic take the form of a dialogue will offer space for argument and nuance: putting psychedelics into historical context, explaining and disproving common myths about psychedelics, explaining how social justice and psychedelics interact, and providing an introductory understanding of the science of psychedelics.

Welcome to Computer Science: Designing a Comic Tour of Computers and Computing

Presenter: Audra McNamee – Mathematics and Computer Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Kathleen Freeman

Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—Comics, Classics and Analysis

While the number of high-quality educational comics is growing, there are no modern long-form comics discussing computer science at an undergraduate level. The computer science comics that do exist, along with being for a younger audience, are generally focused on teaching the reader programming concepts without exploring other aspects of computer science. For this thesis I scripted and drew the 54-page comic Welcome to Computer Science, which introduces the reader to computer science concepts including computer architecture, programming languages, and the internet. As a narrative comic written for an undergraduate audience, it can draw in readers who otherwise might not choose to engage with the material. As a breadth-first introduction, the comic provides the reader with a foundational understanding of computers and computer science; this work may provide even more experienced students with a better understanding of how their computer science classes relate to the rest of the field.

Exploring sibilants and gender: A le/s/on from transgender speakers

Presenter: Jaidan McLean – Linguistics

Faculty Mentor(s): Tyler Kendall

Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—Diversity and Analysis

Sibilant consonant variation is a well-studied topic in linguistics research to examine multiple social axes. Regarding gender, Zimman (2017) raised questions about the social patterning of sibilants in transgender speaker’s /s/ production since previous literature has only examined sibilant variation through a binarily cisgender lens. Focusing on transgender men and transmasculine people, Zimman found the social implications of gender identity and expression influence /s/ production in complex ways. As part of an undergraduate honors thesis, this study attempts to address the following two questions regarding /s/ production among a sample of transgender women and transfeminine people: How does speaker identity influence the patterns for /s/ variation found among the speakers? How do intraspeaker variations differ across speech, gender identities and expressions? Sociolinguistic interviews were used to elicit natural /s/ production, followed by a reading passage and word list task to elicit scripted speech. Focusing on center of gravity (COG) frequencies, this study finds its speaker productions to vary greatly with one’s expression and in certain linguistic conditions, both across the group’s and within individual speech. Such drastic variation complicates binarily established COG frequency ranges from previous literature and parallels Zimman’s (2017) findings. These data demonstrate the importance of considering all aspects of social identities as everyone is complex.

The Lack of Change Throughout Incan Religion Before and After Spanish Conquest

Presenter: Zoë McKeehan – History

Faculty Mentor(s): Dr. Brendan O’Kelly

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

The impact of colonialism was felt across all of South America; an intriguing case study is the Spanish conquest of the Incan people. Since Incan religion heavily influenced their political structure, the Incas were always ruled by a monarchy with divine right (Sapa Inca/King of Spain). They were allowed, to a certain extent, to maintain their own religious beliefs and gods while being converted to a different religion. For these reasons, it can be argued that there were effectively no major changes made to the Incan religion before or after the Spanish conquest.

Caregiving and Depression: Moderating Effects of Social Cohesion among SAGE Individuals

Presenter: Zag McDowall – Psychology

Faculty Mentor(s): Alicia DeLouize, Josh Snodgrass

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

Caregiving for children, people with disabilities, and the elderly is essential for society as a whole. These responsibilities disproportionately fall upon women, especially low-income women. Support, whether from other family members, the community, or the government is often minimal, and their labor is largely undervalued. The high demand on caregivers can impact mental health, and, for individuals where providing care is a larger time commitment, engaging in buffering activities related to social connection may be challenging. Analyzing the relationship between burden of care, social support, and income on depression in caregivers provides a better understanding of how these factors contribute to or mitigate the burden of care. With data collected from the World Health Organization’s Study on Global AGEing and Adult Health (SAGE) in Mexico, India, Russia, China, Ghana, and South Africa, we performed a three-way ANOVA. For women in South Africa, the number of hours caregiving and social cohesion were not associated with depression. We hope that further research will elucidate the characteristics that link caregiving with depression in some communities.

Maternal opioids decrease neonatal opioid receptor expression in brain regions controlling breathing

Presenter: Emilee McDonald – Biology

Faculty Mentor(s): Adrianne Huxtable, Robyn Naidoo

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

An understudied population in the opioid crisis are infants exposed to maternal opioids experiencing breathing deficits. Our animal model of maternal opioids demonstrated neonatal breathing deficits after birth, which normalized with age despite continued maternal opioid exposure, suggesting neonatal compensation to this early life opioid stressor. To understand the mechanisms of these breathing deficits, we tested the hypothesis that maternal opioids decrease opioid receptor expression (since opioids activate opioid receptors to exert their effects) in a key brainstem site for breathing. Brainstem immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy assessed typical developmental changes in neonatal opioid receptor expression after maternal no treatment (control). Opioid receptor expression was highest at postnatal day 0 (P0), when neonates begin breathing, and decreased through P11, a critical maturation period of the nervous system. In neonates after maternal opioids, opioid receptor expression was evaluated at P0 (birth), P4 when neonates still receive opioids through breast milk, and P11 after opioid exposure has ceased. Preliminary data support decreased opioid receptor expression in P0 and P4 neonates after maternal opioids, but a return to control levels at P11. Thus, maternal opioids acutely impair opioid receptor expression in a brainstem site critical for breathing, suggesting opioid receptors may be key to neonatal breathing impairments after maternal opioid exposure.

Social Connection and Fiction: The Possible Benefit of “Interacting” with Fictional Characters

Presenter: Brinna Mawhinney – Psychology

Faculty Mentor(s): Sara D. Hodges, Eliott Doyle

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

This study addresses one role that fiction may play in people’s lives—specifically, providing social “interaction.” Participants (265 University of Oregon students) completed a writing task that involved writing about fictional characters and completed measures of loneliness and social fuel to see if that interaction may fulfill social needs and alleviate loneliness. We hypothesized that higher transportation scores—a participant’s overall immersion in the story as judged by an outside reader’s perspective—would predict lower participant loneliness scores who are writing either from the perspective of a fictional character, to a fictional character, or their own journal entry. Furthermore, we hypothesized that the media source of each fictional character will moderate this relationship, with written source media producing higher transportation scores and lower loneliness scores than visual source media. Finally, we hypothesized that participants who wrote more fiction or journaled outside of the context of the study would earn higher transportation scores and also report lower loneliness scores. Results indicated that coder-rated transportation does significantly predict a larger reduction in loneliness scores. Neither media type nor participants’ own writing outside of the study moderated the relationship between transportation and change in loneliness. Results may have implications for developing a writing intervention to alleviate loneliness.

The Importance of Journalism in Communicating Climate Change

Presenter: Anna Mattson – Environmental Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Carey

Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—Communication: How and Why

For this project, I traveled to Cordova, a small fishing town in Southeastern Alaska, for two weeks to talk with locals about how glacial melt is affecting their lifestyles and how they are adapting to environmental changes happening in Alaska.

I discovered that while millions of salmon still come up the Copper River annually, rising temperatures have led to increased glacial melt, and fish counts are declining. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, in 2021, wild sockeye salmon numbers fell 37.4% below the recorded 10-year average.

The decline of salmon throughout Alaska concerns local communities, like the Native Village of Eyak, whose connection to the area grows out of generations of relationships with salmon.

Salmon are critical to Native Village of Eyak culture and subsistence practices. The Eyak are “dependent on the returning wild salmon to this day.”

Journalism acts as a conduit between scientists, climate events and people — it allows anyone to have a voice and holds institutions and lawmakers accountable.

As more extreme climate events occur, communicating these crises has never been so important, especially as it relates to elevating marginalized communities.

My piece, titled A State of Unease, will be published in Science Insider this summer.