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:

• The Effect of TBI Severity on Learning and Memory in Drosophila melanogaster
• Effects of Yo-Yo Dieting on Immunocompetence
• The Polygenic and Environmental Impact on Stress and Maladaptive Coping Strategies
• The Role of the ACC and the Amygdala in Fear Memory Reconsolidation in an Animal Model of PTSD
• Sexual Arousal Influences the Neural Encoding of Facial Attractiveness
• Bind, Learn, Update, Retrieve: the Role of the Postrhinal Cortex in Contextual Memory
• Too Afraid to Include: Fear Suppresses the Neural Encoding of Out-Group Members.
• Variation in Bilingual Cognitive Performance Contingent on Age of Acquisition.
• The Impact of Perceptual Noise and Emotional Expression on the Neural Encoding of Faces: An EEG Study.
• The Effects of Positive Stereotyping on Math Performance.
• DARPP-32: The Key to Drug Addiction?
• Learning and Memory Deficits in a Drosophila melanogaster Model of Traumatic Brain Injury