Publication Date
2014
Document Type
Thesis
Committee Members
Ryan Jankord (Advisor), David Ladle (Committee Member), Larry Ream (Committee Member)
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Abstract
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been utilized in human studies to modulate a multitude of psychological, cognitive, and psychiatric disorders. There have been positive behavioral results in human subjects but our knowledge of biological processes occurring during stimulation to elicit behavioral outcomes is limited. Our study utilizes a rodent tDCS (R-tDCS) model in which Sprague Dawley rats receive tDCS in order to examine whether tDCS affects neuronal activation. We examined two immediate early genes (IEG's), cFos and zif268, in order to discern if tDCS affects neuronal activation. Our findings indicate that tDCS does affect neuronal activation by means of IEG induction and that there is dose dependence between current intensity used and mRNA levels of IEG's. These findings are important because they show biologically tDCS affecting neuronal activation. This study aided the scientific community in better understanding what is occurring biologically during tDCS.
Page Count
54
Department or Program
Department of Neuroscience, Cell Biology & Physiology
Year Degree Awarded
2014
Copyright
Copyright 2014, some rights reserved. My ETD may be copied and distributed only for non-commercial purposes and may not be modified. All use must give me credit as the original author.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
