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Example research essay topic: Brain Damage Body Weight - 1,503 words

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Alterations in feeding behaviour of female rats at varying phases of their reproductive sequence as a result of lesions in various parts of the amygdala The topic of this proposed research is the role of the amygdala in hunger and satiety following damage in female infant and adult rats as a result of sexual and maternal activity. Data will be collected from 200 female albino rats, 50 infants and 150 adults of the Sprague-Dawley strain. Hunger and satiety will be analysed following feeding behaviour analysis of body weight regulation, spontaneous food and water intake, and the responses to glucose gavage and long-term food deprivation. The results should provide evidence that the aforementioned feeding mechanisms are affected by lesions in some parts of the amygdala and should lead to the safe conclusion that the amygdala does play an equal role in hunger and satiety as it does in appetite. The broad, long-term objectives of this research include; assessing the role of the amygdala (See Figure. 1 for location) on feeding behaviour in the female rat.

In order to realise the role of neural mechanisms and signals underlying hunger and satiation. This specific research is intended to accomplish a greater understanding of the effect of lesions in varying areas of the amygdala on body weight regulation, unprompted food and water intake, responses to glucose gavage and long-term food deprivation. These feeding factors will be analysed at various points throughout the rats' reproductive and maternal activities and the sample will therefore include infant female rats and adult female rats. As the amygdala is comprised of a collection of nuclei in the temporal lobe the basolateral complex is in red, and the lateral nucleus is in yellow. The hippocampus is also displayed in blue, with its cell bodies in black.

The green is a collection of various nerve fibres contributing to the internal and external capsule and corpus callosum. The main assumptions underlying this research are that lesions in altered parts of the amygdala will affect feeding behaviour of the rats in diverse ways as different parts of the amygdala are responsible for divergent functions and these differences will alter depending on whether the female rat in 'in heat', pregnant, or nursing as the amygdala plays roles in reproductive behaviour as well is ingestion. The general goal is therefore to observe both similarities and differences in feeding behaviour observed in Schoenfeld & Hamilton's (1981) report by therefore extending their prior research and applying the findings to a larger rat population. A further goal is to verify or refute Schoenfeld & Hamilton's vague statement that "Body weight regulation, spontaneous food and water intake, and the responses to glucose gavage and long-term food deprivation were not altered by lesions in the amygdala.

Hence the wide-ranging research question the proposed study attempts to answer is 'what exact role does the amygdala play in feeding in the female rat as a function of age and sexual eminence. ' This question shall be answered by firstly asking which of the following behavioural tests; body weight regulation, spontaneous food and water intake, the responses to glucose gavage and feeding response to long-term food deprivation, are altered by lesions in the amygdala of female rats. This latter question enables us to assess the role the amygdala plays in hunger and satiety in the female rat. It is consequently important to make the distinction between appetite, hunger, and satiety, as the latter ones are the only ones that require thorough testing. This is because although various theories have been put forward generally the whole topic in question is poorly understood.

To understand the complexities it is essential to recognize what the terms hunger, appetite and satiety mean. Hunger is the craving for food that is associated with objective sensations. It is a general sensation localised to the stomach region; it appears when the stomach is empty and coincides with contractions detected by mechanoreceptors in the stomach wall. Appetite is the desire for specific types and quantity of food.

Satiety is the opposite of hunger and results from a filling meal. Schoenfeld & Hamilton (1984) felt that some of the tests they conducted did not show disruption of satiety or hunger at all, just appetite. This proposed research will put that assumption to test again, with another variable of gender and reproductive phase. These questions are important because it is imperative to learn if Schoenfeld & Hamilton's (1981) conclusions extend to female rats, and also whether lesions of the amygdala affect the feeding behaviour of the rat differently in different reproductive stages.

The first experiment, on food deprivation is fundamental as although the topic has been a critical factor in research on amygdaloid mechanisms in feeding behaviour. Food deprivation in rats is still largely misunderstood, especially as concerning female rats. The relevant theoretical framework to the proposed research involves producing lesions bilaterally in the various sites in and around the amygdala and then assessing brain damage using standardized gridded plates from a rat brain atlas, to see if lesions in particular areas affect feeding behaviour in differing ways. The hypotheses will be tested thoroughly by using similar methods as stated in Schoenfeld & Hamilton's method section but using female rats instead of male, and at different points in their life cycles. The factor of age will be carefully controlled as will the factor of weight.

The theoretical and empirical background for this proposed research chiefly originates from Schoenfeld & Hamilton's (1981) investigation into disruption of appetite following small lesions in the amygdala of male rats. Kl&url; ver and By (1939) are most often cited as having initially suggested that the amygdala plays an important role in feeding behaviour. They came to this conclusion through observing the functions of the temporal lobes in monkeys. Others researchers that have worked on similar problems include; Nachman and Ashe (1974), however they extended the original idea to the study of rats. Unfortunately, the methods used in these previous studies led to a lack of specificity.

The consequences of the research led to more unanswered questions, as no conclusions had been uncovered about the fixed limits or boundary of the amygdala's involvement in feeding behaviour. Even though Nachman and Ashe did manage to incorporate behavioural specificity with anatomical specificity in a reasonable way it is still unclear whether differences in results between experiments are due to differing procedures, anatomical destruction, or some other distinction. For this reason the proposed experimental procedure shall closely follow Schoenfeld & Hamilton's, as displayed in their 1981 publication. The results and conclusions of previous research are quite contradictory. For instance Pupils (1966) study, and Kemble & Schwartzbaum's (1969) study on the effect of lesions on the response to brief exposure to 8 % sucrose solutions yielded completely inconsistent findings even though they were extremely similar experiments. Another important contradiction relates to the theory behind experiment 1.

Date and Grossman (1977) compared the effects of lesions restricted to only the amygdala and only to the status. They found that lesions of the central amygdaloid nucleus do not alter spontaneous feeding and drinking. Conversely, observations by Box and Mogenson (1975) were conflicting. Clearly, further tests need to be carried out in order to shed more light on the subject. The proposed study will therefore be limited to the investigation of infant and adult female rats with lesions in various part of their amygdala (see Table 1), on subsequent testing in four measures of their feeding behaviour. Experiment 1: &# 61607; Ventromedial area Experiment 2: &# 61607; Lateral amygdala &# 61607; Amygdalaostriatal transition zone Table 1.

Area of brain damage in each experiment The work that I intend to execute will take this previous research and not only extend it but also challenge some of its core conclusions. It will also explore a previously ignored area of research by investigating the interaction between reproductive behaviour and appetite following brain damage of the amygdala. Following thorough analysis and evaluation of the current knowledge available, it becomes apparent that the research proposed would fill in an imperative gap in the literature, i. e. the absent data from females of the Sprague-Dawley strain, at differing stages of reproductive age and activity.

Pfaff and Kernel (1972) found that the amygdala contains some cell groups, which are targets for estrogens. It is therefore sensible to assume that lesions in particular areas will cause interference of feedings behaviour in most female rats (except for the ones that are not sexually mature). The future study will also challenge prior knowledge by retesting the claim that "the amygdala may play a greater role in appetite than in hunger or satiety. " This extended assessment will only analyse the previously dismissed feeding behaviour, which damage to different parts of the amygdala was concluded as having not been changed. In summary, this proposal comprises a replication of the Schoenfeld & Hamilton (1981) study plus an essential gender extension. The experimental design is completely between. The main factor that will be manipulated is the region of damage within the any...


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Research essay sample on Brain Damage Body Weight

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