A Proposal for the Center for Undergraduate Research Scholarship

Monitoring cognitive vigilance during attentive tasks, such as the psychomotor vigilance test (PVT), helps evaluate performance. EEG can be used to track the type of attentive control being used during task progression: top-down (TD; goal-driven) or bottom-up (BU; salient driven). This is contingent on the dichotomous view of attention (Gaspelin & Luck, 2018), which excludes a third proposed mechanism: selection bias (Awh et al., 2012). In this literature review, it is proposed that low frequency beta (β) waves are a strong index of TD control. BU control, however, lacks a clear EEG metric such as proposed gamma (𝛾) waves (Buschman & Miller, 2007). Additionally, mission constraints prevent the ideal use of both spatial fMRI and temporal EEG. For such a metric, a follow up investigation measuring changes in β wave activity from baseline may provide an indirect metric of BU control. Furthermore, a general lack of understanding of BU control and its possible task subsets warrants exploration.

Monitoring cognitive vigilance during attentive tasks, such as the psychomotor vigilance test (PVT), helps evaluate performance. EEG can be used to track the type of attentive control being used during task progression: top-down (TD; goal-driven) or bottom-up (BU; salient driven). This is contingent on the dichotomous view of attention (Gaspelin & Luck, 2018), which excludes a third proposed mechanism: selection bias (Awh et al., 2012). In this literature review, it is proposed that low frequency beta (β) waves are a strong index of TD control. BU control, however, lacks a clear EEG metric such as proposed gamma (𝛾) waves (Buschman & Miller, 2007). Additionally, mission constraints prevent the ideal use of both spatial fMRI and temporal EEG. For such a metric, a follow up investigation measuring changes in β wave activity from baseline may provide an indirect metric of BU control. Furthermore, a general lack of understanding of BU control and its possible task subsets warrants exploration.

A document by Dominic Meszaros. Click on the document to view its contents.

A document by Dominic Meszaros. Click on the document to view its contents.

A genetic predisposition to addictive behaviors can often be attributed to mesolimbic dopamine deficiencies. Using rat animal models, addictive behavior and incentive contrast were explored using alcohol-preferring rats (P) and alcohol-non-preferring Wistar rats. It is expected that Wistar rats will demonstrate typical incentive contrast with the presentation of sucrose (favorable) and ethanol (aversive) exposure. P rats are hypothesized to display impaired incentive contrast. Rats were tested on 20s, 10s, and 5s trial access to sucrose or ethanol. Trial regimen shifts were present to create positive or negative contrast. The consumptive data of sucrose and ethanol for the aforementioned programs were analyzed using ANOVA and pairwise comparisons. Some statistically significant differences/trends were found between P Rat and Wistar with incentive contrast shifts. However, general predicted patterns were observed. This preliminary data indicates that genetic variance influences incentive contrast behavior in some respects.