Gender Differences in Human Single Neuron Responses to Male Emotional Faces

Well-documented differences in the psychology and behavior of men and women have spurred extensive exploration of gender€™s role within the brain, particularly regarding emotional processing. While neuroanatomical studies clearly show differences between the sexes, the functional effects of these differences are less understood. Neuroimaging studies have shown inconsistent locations and magnitudes of gender differences in brain hemodynamic responses to emotion. To better understand the neurophysiology of these gender differences, we analyzed recordings of single neuron activity in the human brain as subjects of both genders viewed emotional expressions. This study included recordings of single-neuron activity of 14 (6 male) epileptic patients in four brain areas: amygdala (236 neurons), hippocampus (n = 270), anterior cingulate cortex (n = 256), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (n = 174). Neural activity was recorded while participants viewed a series of avatar male faces portraying positive, negative or neutral expressions. Significant gender differences were found in the left amygdala, where 23% (n = 15/66) of neurons in men were significantly affected by facial emotion, vs. 8% (n = 6/76) of neurons in women. A Fisher€™s exact test comparing the two ratios found a highly significant difference between the two (p \u3c 0.01). These results show specific differences between genders at the single-neuron level in the human amygdala. These differences may reflect gender-based distinctions in evolved capacities for emotional processing and also demonstrate the importance of including subject gender as an independent factor in future studies of emotional processing by single neurons in the human amygdala

Ramsey County Environmental Response Fund Impact Study

Report and poster completed by students participating in the Economic Development Fellowship Consulting Program, offered through the Office of University Economic Development in Spring 2019.This project was completed as part of the 2018-2019 Resilient Communities Project (rcp.umn.edu) partnership with Ramsey County. Ramsey County collects a small percentage of the mortgage registry and deed tax to help fund the clean-up of contaminated land. This Environmental Response Fund (ERF) is leveraged with private investment and other public funding for redevelopment projects within the county. Since the program’s inception, 22 projects have received $5.7 million in funding and 200 acres have been remediated. Although the fund has been successful in cleaning up brownfields, little was known about the broader outcomes of the redevelopment projects completed after 2012, the last time an impact assessment was undertaken. Ramsey County Project Lead Mary Lou Egan worked with students in the Economic Development Fellows Consulting Program to evaluate the impact of ERF projects in terms of public and private investment leveraged, tax revenue generated, and jobs and housing units generated, and identified ways to strengthen and improve the program going forward. The students' final report and a poster summarizing the project are available.This project was supported by the Resilient Communities Project (RCP), a program at the University of Minnesota whose mission is to connect communities in Minnesota with U of MN faculty and students to advance community resilience through collaborative, course-based projects. RCP is a program of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA). More information at http://www.rcp.umn.edu

An Investigation of the Cellular Mechanisms Underlying Ultrasound Neuromodulation

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.August 2020. Major: Neuroscience. Advisor: Karen Mesce. 1 computer file (PDF); 225 pages.Focused ultrasound is an emerging neuromodulation technology with the unique potential to noninvasively modulate neuronal activity in deep brain structures with high spatial specificity, offering a potential alternative to invasive neural stimulators. Decades of research have confirmed that ultrasound induces profound effects on neuronal firing rates in a wide range of animal systems, yet the direction (increase or decrease) and primary effector of these effects remain a subject of debate. Here, we describe experiments designed to assess these core questions in a tractable invertebrate model, the medicinal leech (Hirudo verbana). We examined the effects of ultrasound (960 kHz) on an identified motoneuron, a class of cells believed to lack canonical mechanosensitive ion channels, and whose response to ultrasound we predict to be reflective of effects on most neuronal cell types. We observed both neuronal excitation and inhibition, with a bias towards inhibitory effects. These effects were direct, and persisted in the presence of synaptic blockers. Importantly, these effects were only observed when applying ultrasound of sufficient duration to generate heating in excess of 2 °C. Similar durations of ultrasound in a low-heat paradigm were insufficient to induce changes in neuronal firing rate. We thus concluded that heat is the primary effector of ultrasound neuromodulation in this system, which was reinforced by our ability to elicit comparable effects through the targeted application of heat alone. Additional experiments using non-thermal short pulses of ultrasound on sensory neurons failed to produce neuronal activation at and above intensities at which others have reported excitation, with the exception of effects we deemed artifactual due to electrode resonance, and which could be reliably mimicked with micromovements of the recording electrode. We conclude that the mechanical effects of ultrasound, which are frequently described in the literature, are less reliably achieved than thermal effects, and observations ascribed to mechanical effects may be confounded by activation of synaptically-coupled sensory structures or artifact associated with electrode resonance. Nonetheless, ultrasound can generate significant modulation at temperatures < 5 °C, which are believed to be safe for moderate durations. Ultrasound should therefore be investigated as a thermal neuromodulation technology for clinical use