Honors Program
Honors in Psychology
Date of Award
5-2014
Thesis Professor(s)
Russel W. Brown
Thesis Professor Department
Psychology
Thesis Reader(s)
Gregory A. Ordway
Abstract
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States. Nearly half of the people diagnosed with heart failure (HF) die within 5 years of diagnosis. Brain abnormalities secondary to CVD have been observed in many discrete regions, including the hippocampus. Nearly 25% of patients with CVD also have major depressive disorder (MDD), and hippocampal dysfunction is a characteristic of both diseases. In this study, the hippocampus and an area of the hippocampal formation, the dentate gyrus (DG), were studied in a canine model of HF. Using this canine HF model previously, we have determined that myocardial infarction with mitral valve regurgitation (MI/MR) + spinal cord stimulation (SCS) can preserve cardiac function. The goal of this study was to determine if the SCS can also protect the brain in a similar fashion. Both the entire hippocampus and the DG tissues were dissected from canine brains and analyzed. These findings provide strong evidence that, in addition to the cardioprotective effects observed previously, SCS following MI/MR induces neuroprotective effects in the brain.
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
DiPeri, Timothy P., "Neuromodulation Therapy Mitigates Heart Failure Induced Hippocampal Damage" (2014). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 208. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/208
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.
Included in
Biological Psychology Commons, Cardiovascular Diseases Commons, Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience Commons