UNIVERSITY OF YORK – CITY COLLEGE: MASTERS IN CLINICAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY
What is Clinical Neuropsychology?
Just as it sounds, neuropsychology is the crossover between neuroscience (the study of the nervous system) and psychology (the study of mind, behavior and cognition). Clinical Neuropsychology applies this research to a patient care setting in diagnostics and treatment application
Undergrad Experience
Independent Study
Worked closely with Dr. Scott Husband on an Independent Study in my final semester of undergrad. We discussed and analyzed results from his PhD examining the cognitive flexibility of pigeons using a comparative neuroanatomical approach. Specifically, we monitored the nucleus accumbens – a brain structure that employs dopamine as a neurotransmitter.
ABSTRACT:
Cognitive flexibility (CF) is key to intelligent/adaptive responding and is impaired in many disorders (e.g., ADHD, schizophrenia). Human CF involves the neurotransmitter dopamine and the brain structure nucleus accumbens (NAc). Evolutionary origins of CF and its brain circuitry is not well understood; we chose pigeons as a model species given their 300- million-year evolutionary divergence from mammals. Pigeons were trained on a visual task, received NAc lesions, and went through a reversal learning task that requires CF. Impaired CF can manifest in perseverative responding, where subjects cannot flexibly change their behavior. Damage to NAc created significant (but transient) perseverative responding in our birds, much like in mammals. It appears that birds and mammals share an evolutionarily old underlying brain circuit to support CF as they respond to an ever- changing environment.
SUBJECTS:
Adult pigeons (n=8)
EXPERIMENT:
Operant training using a Skinner box- pigeons were taught a conditioning task. The task presented two stimulus keys to the birds, in which one provided a reinforcement (food) and the other a punishment (darkness). After the birds were trained and got 15 consecutive keys correct in a row, 10 reversals were then performed. Afterwards, the birds underwent either a bilateral electrolytic Nac lesion procedure or a “sham” operation.
DISCUSSION:
The NAc lesions did not impair visual discrimination of patterns
The NAc lesions did create significant (but transient) deficits in reversal learning
NAc lesioned birds showed cognitive rigidity (preservation) as seen in mammals, by persisting in responses to the prior sessions in rewarded stimulus
Psychophysiology Lab Assistant
Worked in the Cognitive Psychophysiology Lab under Dr. Forest Rosenfeld.
In my three semesters as a research assistant, we assessed individual differences in emotional learning with EEG to asses biomarkers of threat anticipation. In doing so, we utilized aversive and discriminative stimuli in trials, collected participant consent forms, questionnaires and verbal intake interviews. My time in the lab has taught me how to properly apply, record and monitor the neural activity of a participant with an EEG headset
Mock Experimental Design
Title: CTE in Professional American Football Players
Proposed a Longitudinal quasi-experimental design monitoring NFL players (active and retired) categorized based on position type to determine patterns in potential CTE development in order to implement prevention strategies for susceptible players.
Presented to peers, professor and Department of Psychology