Tyson W. Baker, M.A.

PhD Candidate in Psychology

Area of research: My focus is on food-reinforced behaviours and how they are affected by dopaminergic drugs.  My recent research investigated the effects of antipsychotics and other dopaminergic drugs on lever press acquisition: an area that has been relatively unresearched, possibly due to high variance in the rates of acquisition.  I have modified a shaping-free lever press acquisition protocol to rapidly elicit robust lever pressing.  At present, I am using touch screen operant chambers to administer "human" computer-based tasks to rats.  I then plan on using the touch screen tasks to expand the known behavioural profile of the drugs used in my lever press acquisition studies.  My previous research has investigated the role of dopamine D3 receptors and amphetamine in operant responding for food-conditioned reward.  My master’s research in this lab improved upon a two-link heterogeneous chain schedule devaluation procedure and found minor changes in food restriction allowed or disallowed devaluation to occur.

Peer-reviewed Publications  

Baker TW, Weisman RG, Beninger RJ. (2012) Reinforcer devaluation by extinction depends on the food restriction protocol. Behavioural Processes, accepted February 15, 2012

Beninger RJ, Baker TW, Florczynski MM, Banasikowski T. (2010) Regional differences in the action of antipsychotic drugs: implications for cognitive effects in schizophrenic patients. Neurotoxicity Research 18: 229-243

Tomek J. Banasikowski, MSc

PhD Candidate in the Center for Neuroscience

Area of research: My work at the Neurotransmitters and Behaviour Laboratory at Queen’s has focused primarily on dissociating the effects of dopamine (DA) receptor-subtypes in a number of conditioned behaviors in rats. My current interests examine the mechanisms of catalepsy sensitization and conditioned catalepsy where rats are treated with a sub-threshold dose of antipsychotic drug, specifically haloperidol, in a particular environment. Initially the rats do not exhibit catalepsy, however with time, day-to-day catalepsy sensitization is observed but only in the drug paired environment. More interestingly, when rats are given saline instead of haloperidol they continue to exhibit catalepsy, now conditioned. Meanwhile, if the same dose of haloperidol is injected and catalepsy tested in another environment, animals fail to express catalepsy (see figure below). Thus, this effect is strongly conditioned to the test environment and the expected behaviour associated with daily administration of the drug (haloperidol) can be mitigated by placing the animal in a new environment. Conversely, administration of placebo (saline) without changing the environment produces the expected behaviour indicating a conditioning effect of environment. This model allows us to study the role of dopamine in the control of behavior by environmental stimuli.

Peer-reviewed Publications

Banasikowski TJ, Beninger RJ. (2012) Reduced expression of haloperidol conditioned catalepsy in rats by the dopamine D3 recetor antagonists nafadotride and NGB 2904. European Neuropsychopharmacology, accepted February 16, 2012 

Banasikowski TJ, Beninger RJ. (2012) Dopamine D1-like receptors are critical for haloperidol conditioned catalepsy in rats. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, DOI:10.1017/S1461145711001696 

Banasikowski TJ, McLeod LS, Beninger RJ. (2012) Comparison of the effects of nafadotride, CNQX and. haloperidol on acquisition vs. expression of amphetamine conditioned place preference in rats. Behavioural Pharmacology 23: 89-97

T.J. Banasikowski, A. Bespalov, K. Drescher, B. Behl, L. Unger, A. Haupt, H. Schoemaker, J.P. Sullivan, G. Gross, R.J. Beninger. (2010) Double dissociation of the effects of haloperidol and the dopamine d3 receptor antagonist ABT-127 on acquisition vs. expression of cocaine-conditioned activity in rats. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 335(2), 506-15.  

T.J. Banasikowski, R.J. Beninger. (2010) Conditioned drug effects. In: Stolerman IP (ed.) Encyclopedia of Psychopharmacology. Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, pp. 325-331.

R.J. Beninger, T.W. Baker, M.M. Florczynski, T.J. Banasikowski. (2010) Regional differences in the action of antipsychotic drugs: implications for cognitive effects in schizophrenic patients. Neurotoxicity Research 18(3-4), 229-43.

R. J. Beninger, J. Beuk, T. J. Banasikowski, M van Adel, G. A. Boivin, J. N. Reynolds. (2010) Subchronic phencyclidine in rats: Alterations in locomotor activity, maze performance, and GABAA receptor binding. Behavioural Pharmacology, 21(1), 1-10.

R.J. Beninger, T.J. Banasikowski. (2008) Dopaminergic mechanism of reward-related incentive learning: Focus on the dopamine d3 receptor. Neurotoxicity Research, 14(1), 57-70.   

Jonathan Beuk, MSc

PhD Student in the Center for Neuroscience

Area of research: The study of executive function (the cognitive abilities that allow voluntary control of goal-directed actions) has extended our understanding of how the brain plans, initiates, and often inhibits thoughts and actions in situations where their appropriateness may change in a dynamic environment. Deficits in the inhibitory control of action are likely an underlying cause of a number of psychopathologies including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder.

I am currently investigating inhibitory control of action with the countermanding paradigm. The countermanding task consists of GO trials (75% of trials) which require a primary response, interleaved with stop trials (25%) whereby a stop signal instructs cancellation of the primary response. With this paradigm we are able to employ a comprehensive array of investigative techniques to explore the basic neural mechanisms underlying inhibitory control, particularly where it may be impaired in neurological disease and impulsivity.

Publications

Beninger RJ, Beuk J, Banasikowski TJ, van Adel M, Boivin GA, Reynolds JN (2010) Subchronic phencyclidine in rats: alterations in locomotor activity, maze performance, and GABA(A) receptor binding. Behavioral Pharmacology 21:1-10.

Swain, SN, Beuk, J, Heidbreder, CA & Beninger, RJ (2008) Role of dopamine D3 receptors in the expression of conditioned fear in rats. European Journal of Pharmacology 579:167-176.

Lisa Bradford

Ph.D. Student in Psychology

Area of research: I am currently in the second year of my doctoral degree in clinical psychology. Nondeclarative memory has subtypes associated with different brain regions. Learning of a probabilistic classification task is impaired by striatal damage and learning of a gambling task is compromised by ventromedial prefrontocortical damage. Typical antipsychotics affect immediate early gene expression in the striatum but not in the frontal cortex, whereas atypical antipsychotics induce c-fos in the frontal cortex but not in the striatum. Moreover, previous research in the Beninger lab demonstrated that schizophrenic patients on typical antipsychotics, compared with those on atypicals and normal controls, were impaired in probabilistic classification learning. In contrast, patients on atypical antipsychotics, compared with the other two groups, performed significantly worse on the gambling task. These results suggest that typical and atypical antipsychotics differentially affect nondeclarative memory mediated by different brain regions. Building on these important findings for my doctoral dissertation, I will use the same nondeclarative memory paradigms to determine the neuroanatomical correlates of individual atypical antipsychotic medications. For example, it is hypothesized that in higher doses the atypical antipsychotic, risperidone, functions more like a typical antipsychotic. On which nondeclarative memory task will schizophrenic patients on risperidone be impaired and which brain region, the striatum or ventromedial prefrontal cortex, will be implicated? Given that atypical antipsychotics have become the first-line treatment for schizophrenia, it is imperative to understand their cognitive and neuroanatomical effects.

Publications

Hopkins, R. W., Day, D. J., Kilik, L. A., Rows, C. P., Bradford, L., & Hamilton, P. (2004). Kingston Standardized Behavioural Assessment. Geriatric Psychiatry Programme Clinical/Research Bulletin, No. 14.

Knott, V.,Bradford, L., Millar, A., Dulude, L., Alwahabi, F., Lau, T., Shea, C., & Wiens, A. (2004). Event-related potentials in young and elderly adults during a visual spatial working memory task. Clinical Electroencephalography and Neuroscience, 35(4), 185-192.

Knott, V., Bradford, L., Dulude, L., Millar, A., Alwahabi, F., Lau, T., Shea, C., & Wiens, A. (2003). Effects of stimulus modality and response mode on the P300 event-related potential differentiation in young and elderly adults. Clinical Electroencephalography, 34(4), 182-190.


Selected Presentations

Bradford, L., Kilik. L. A., Olmstead, C., Hopkins, R. W., Day, D. J., & Rows, C. P. (2006, February). Exploring promising new behavioural assessment tools for dementia: Validation of the Kingston Standardized Behavioural Assessment (KSBA). Poster session to be presented at the International Neuropsychological Society Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

Bradford, L., Kilik. L. A., Hopkins, R. W., Day, D. J., Rows, C. P., & Prince, C. (2005, July). Validation of the Kingston Standardized Cognitive Assessment- Revised (KSCA-R). Poster session presented at the annual Brain and Behaviour and Cognitive Science Conference, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Knott, V., Bradford, L., Dulude, L., Millar, A., Alwahabi, F., Lau, T., Shea, C., & Wiens, A. (2003, June). Impact of age and task modality on the P300 event-related potential of the human electroencephalogram. Poster session presented at the annual conference of the Canadian Psychological Association, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

• Winner for best poster in field of human development (value of $250)

Knott, V.,Bradford, L., Dulude, L., Millar, A., Alwahabi, F., Lau, T., Shea, C., & Wiens, A. (2002, November). Brain event-related potential correlates of normal cognitive aging. Poster session presented at the 23rd University of Ottawa (Department of Psychiatry) Annual Research Day, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

• Won first prize research award (value of $500).

Cynthia Di Prospero BA (Hons.) Psychology

Research Technician

Area of research: As a research technician in the lab I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of diverse projects involving conditioned activity, conditioned catalepsy, conditioned place preference, stereotaxic surgery, histologies and extractions for western blotting. Most of my work has focused on examining the role of GSK3-β in learning using systemic and central injections of GSK3-β inhibitor SB 216763 in the amphetamine-based conditioned activity paradigm. My focus for the coming year will be on signalling molecules involved in conditioned catalepsy.

Emily Hawken, MSc

PhD Student in the Center for Neuroscience
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry

Area of research: I am using animal models of schizophrenia-like symptoms to examine excessive water drinking (polydipsia) commonly associated with schizophrenia. My short term goal is to learn about how our neurophysiology processes information from the environment. My long term goal is world domination.

Publications:

Hawken ER, Delva NJ, Reynolds JR, Beninger RJ. (2011) Increased schedule-induced polydipsia in the rat following subchronic treatment with MK-801.Schizophrenia Research 125: 93-98

Hawken ER, Owen JA, Hudson RW, Delva NJ (2009) Specific effects of escitalopram on neuroendocrine response. Psychopharmacology (in press)

Hawken ER, M. Crookall MJ, Reddick D, Millson RC, Milev R, Delva N (2009) Mortality over a 20-year period in patients with primary polydipsia associated with schizophrenia: a retrospective study. Schizophrenia Research 107: 128-133.

Hawken ER, Owen JA, Van Vugt D, Delva NJ (2006) Effects of oral racemic citalopram on neuroendocrine responses. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry 30:694-700.

Hawken ER, Delva NJ, Lawson JS (2001) Successful use of propranolol in migraine associated with electroconvulsive therapy. Headache 41:92-96

Josh Lister

BSc (Hons.) Candidate in Psychology

Area of research: Well-validated animal models of schizophrenia symptoms provide an understanding of the underlying mechanisms in the human disorder while concurrently facilitating the discovery of novel pharmacotherapeutics. I am examining the effects of early social isolation and sub-chronic exposure to dizocilpine (MK-801, a non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist) on a reversal task that will serve as an index of cognitive flexibility in rodents. I plan to utilize this paradigm to investigate the capacity of a novel psychotropic agent to ameliorate deficits observed in affected animals in the performance of this task.

Susan E. Quartarone BA (Hon)

Masters Candidate in Neuroscience

Area of research: I am interested in neurotransmitters in the brain and their involvement in learning, specifically incentive learning. Dopamine (DA) is of particular interest as it is paramount in reward-related learning. In fact, mice without DA signalling exhibit deficits in goal-directed behaviour due to decreased motivation to obtain rewards. An important signalling molecule in the DA question is glycogen-synthase-kinase-3-beta (GSK-3β), as it has been proposed as an essential component in DA-mediated behaviours. GSK-3β is part of the protein kinase B (Akt) protein phosphatase-2A (PP2A) beta arrestin 2 (βArr2) signalling complex. It has been found that DA D2 receptor activation inhibits Akt activity. Inhibition of Akt prevents Akt from phosphorylating GSK-3β resulting in increased levels of GSK-3β in the brain. Interestingly, DA agonists such as amphetamine actually increase levels of GSK-3β in the brain, while antipsychotics which block DA D2 receptors prevent Akt inhibition, resulting in phosphorylation and therefore deactivation of GSK-3β. Using a GSK-3β inhibitor in the rat brain, coupled with the conditioned place preference paradigm using amphetamine would be a direct way of investigating the hypothesis that GSK-3β is implicated in incentive learning. If the rat does not show a conditioned place preference, this will implicate that the GSK-3β inhibitor has blocked the reward associated with substance use. My current research investigates this.

My previous research investigated the disposition of impulsivity and its relation to comorbid alcohol and substance use disorders and how that is related to prescribed methadone dose in methadone maintenance populations.

Corrine Seeley, MSc

PhD Student in the Center for Neuroscience

Area of research: While working towards completing my Ph.D. I will be investigating the relationship between sleep and cognitive procedural learning. It is widely reported that off-line processing of both motor procedural and declarative learning tasks occur during post-learning sleep and that specific sleep mechanisms play a very important role in memory consolidation and performance improvement. On a behavioural level, sleep has been shown to improve performance on cognitively complex learning tasks, however, little has been done to investigate post-learning sleep architecture changes and how they are correlated with task improvement scores. In collaboration with Dr Carlyle Smith at Trent University Sleep lab, some questions I will be asking are  1) how does sleep architecture change following learning of a cognitive procedural learning task, 2) how do these changes correlate with aspects of performance improvement and 3) are certain brain areas involved in off-line processing during sleep.
 
My previous research interests have involved investigating situational caffeine tolerance in Drosophila melanogaster, as well as an investigation of forced copulation.
 
Publications
 
Seeley, C & Dukas, R. (2011). Teneral matings in fruit flies: Male coercion and female response.  Animal Behaviour, 81, 595-601.

Sarah Simpson, BSc (Hons.)

MD Candidate
Queen's School of Medicine
 
Area of research: research: I am interested in the interaction of biological and environmental factors implicated in schizophrenia. Animal models offer insight into the underlying pathology and novel therapeutic approaches to schizophrenia. My research utilizes an animal model of schizophrenia-like symptoms to explore abnormalities of neurotransmission that may underlie behavioural and cognitive deficits characteristic of the disorder.

Subchronic treatment with a non-competitive glutamate NMDA-receptor antagonist or social isolation from weaning (P21) to adulthood (P56) produce deficits similar to some positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The combination of these two treatments may produce a more robust animal model of symptoms. My current interests lie in the GABAergic deficits that may underlie some symptoms of schizophrenia and the ability of pro-GABA treatment to ameliorate the cognitive and behavioural deficits produced by this animal model.

Publications
 

Simpson, S. M., Menard, J. L., Reynolds, J. N., & Beninger, R. J. (2010). Post-weaning social isolation increases activity in a novel environment but decreases defensive burying and subchronic MK-801 enhances the activity but not the burying effect in rats. Pharmacol Biochem 
Behav, 95, 72-79.