Publications by authors named "Abigail Parakoyi"
Article Synopsis
- - Pavlovian fear conditioning research has primarily focused on male rodents and the freezing response, but new findings reveal that female rodents exhibit a different response called "darting," characterized by rapid escape movements.
- - Darting females (Darters) show less freezing than males and Non-darters, and they move faster when exposed to foot shocks, raising questions about the underlying mechanisms of these responses.
- - Further investigation showed that Darters are not more sensitive to aversive stimuli compared to Non-darters and males; instead, they might be less reactive in certain cases, highlighting the need to consider individual responses in fear conditioning studies.
Pavlovian fear conditioning is a widely used tool that models associative learning in rodents. For decades the field has used predominantly male rodents and focused on a sole conditioned fear response: freezing. However, recent work from our lab and others has identified darting as a female-biased conditioned response, characterized by an escape-like movement across a fear conditioning chamber.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDecreased estrogens during menopause are associated with increased risk of anxiety, depression, type 2 diabetes and obesity. Similarly, depleting estrogens in rodents by ovariectomy, combined with a high-fat diet (HFD), increases anxiety and adiposity. How estrogens and diet interact to affect anxiety and metabolism is poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly life adversity (ELA) increases the incidence of later-life anxiety disorders. Dysregulated threat processing, including responsivity to ambiguous threats, is an indicator of anxiety disorders and can be influenced by childhood experiences. The acoustic startle response is a defensive reflex displayed by mammals when exposed to sudden intense stimuli reflecting individual variations in vigilance.
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- Rodent models of early life adversity show that unpredictable interactions between mother rats (dams) and their pups can lead to long-term developmental issues for the pups.
- The study employed a maternal separation (MS) protocol to analyze how maternal behavior varies in MS dams compared to control groups, focusing on predictability and fragmentation of care.
- Results indicated that after reunification, MS dams exhibited more nursing and grooming behaviors, but their interactions were less predictable and more fragmented compared to control dams, highlighting new insights into the impacts of early life adversity.
A decrease in ovarian estrogens in postmenopausal women increases the risk of weight gain, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and chronic inflammation. While it is known that gut microbiota regulates energy homeostasis, it is unclear if gut microbiota is associated with estradiol regulation of metabolism. In this study, we tested if estradiol-mediated protection from high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity and metabolic changes are associated with longitudinal alterations in gut microbiota in female mice.
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