The Senior Program

As seniors, neuroscience majors carry out a research project that culminates in a thesis and an oral presentation. Working closely with a faculty advisor, each student uses the senior project to synthesize and focus previous coursework. The senior project is an original work of scholarship that provides an in-depth examination of a particular empirical or theoretical issue.

In the Senior Fellowship Program, as many as seven Hamilton students undertake a major research project under the supervision of two or more faculty members. Recent senior fellows in neuroscience have studied octopamine and single neurons.

Recent projects in neuroscience include:

• An Investigation of the DREADD Mechanism Through c-fos Analysis
• Does Cronotype Affect Visual Search?
• Does Error Processing Relate to Negative Affect and Right Wing Authoritarianism?
• Effects of Puberty Blocker and Hormone Replacement Therapy in a Male Rat Model
• Evaluating Retrograde and Non-Retrograde Cre-GFP Label in Neurons That Project to the Nucleus Accumbens
• Evaluating the Impact of IL-6 in Self-Perceived Health and OCD Symptoms in Adult Participants
• Examining Hypothalamic Hormone Expression in Miro1 Knockout Mice
• Influence of Reward on Holistic Strategy Use in Visuomotor Adaptation
• Incoming Text From the ERN: You’ve Made a Mistake
• Investigating the Neural Circuitry of Amphetamine Reinstatement in Rats
• Investigating the Role of Miro1 in Hippocampal Morphology and Long-Term Spatial Memory
• Lead Exposure Disrupts Developmental and Octopamine Signaling Pathways in Drosophila melanogaster Through Epigenetic Gene Silencing
• Microglial Activation in Miro1 Knockout Mice and Its Role in Neurodegenerative Disease
• Miro1 and Its Role in Fear Memory
• Modeling Glioblastoma Angiogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster Larvae
• Neural Correlates of Explicit Strategy Use in Visuomotor Rotation
• The Impact of Estradiol on Psychological Disorders Among College Students
• The Impact of Scaffolding on Learning Complex Tasks
• The Role of Miro1 in Axon Pathways From the Cortex
• The Role of Parental Support in the Relationship Between Sibling Disability and Brain Development
• Uncovering the Role of the Dopamine System in Lead-Induced Hyperactivity in Drosophila melanogaster