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Histone Modifications in the Wood Frog Brain: An Epigenetic Perspective on Anoxic Stress
Get PDFThe wood frog, Rana sylvatica, can survive extended periods of oxygen deprivation without suffering any apparent damage to its tissues or cells. This remarkable animal is capable of surviving anoxia by utilizing complex regulatory mechanisms to undergo metabolic rate depression (MRD) including histone arginine methylation/demethylation and histone lysine acetylation/deacetylation. The current study utilizes immunoblotting of relative protein expression to examine the possible effects histone modifications can have on the wood frog brain during anoxia compared to normal physiological conditions. The interplay between histone arginine methyltransferases, demethylases, lysine acetyltransferases, deacetylases (PRMTs, RDMs, KATs, HDACs, SIRTs), and their respective histone targets were examined. Altogether, this study highlights the regulatory roles played via histone modifications, and how they help the animal survive with a focus on suppression of energetically expensive processes
Molecular Underpinnings of Social Memory Encoding in the Hippocampus and CNOT3 Effect on Behaviours Relevant for Autism Spectrum Disorders
Get PDFSocial memory, essential for adaptive behaviors in species including rodents, involves hippocampal mechanisms, yet underlying molecular pathways remain unclear. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), characterized by social deficits, is linked to mutations disrupting transcriptional regulation and protein synthesis, such as in Cnot3 (CCR4-NOT subunit 3), a gene implicated in mRNA degradation. However, Cnot3’s role in ASD-related behaviors is unexplored. This thesis addressed two main objectives: first, to determine the most suitable behavioral paradigm for inducing robust social memory in mice, and second, to evaluate the behavioral impact of a Cnot3 mutation on ASD-related phenotypes. To prepare for future molecular analyses, we identified a modified three-chamber paradigm, with a 5-minute interaction duration, as the most reliable task for inducing social memory. Results also demonstrate that Cnot3 conditional heterozygous (cHet) mutations selectively impair social novelty recognition in male mice, without altering sociability, anxiety-like, or repetitive behaviors
Landscapes of Rural Girlhood: Navigating Belonging in Southeast Saskatchewan
Get PDFThis dissertation examines the ways gender, class, race and age intersect with the industrial complex of rural southeast Saskatchewan to shape rural girls’ embodied experiences of girlhood by engaging with concepts of affect, relationality, and a politics of belonging. By exploring rural life through the lived experiences of women and girls, this research project explores the structural forms of inequality women and girls encounter within industrial capitalism and extraction, colonialism, racism, and heteropatriarchy, and the ways in which they navigate and challenge these forms of inequality in their everyday lives. The methods and approaches used for this study include participant observation, open-ended and semi-structured interviews both in-person and virtually, autoethnography, and photovoice. Fieldwork for this project took place over 16 months in 12 rural communities heavily entangled in the fossil fuel and agricultural industries in southeast Saskatchewan. In exploring the everydayness of the politics of belonging, and following Sara Ahmed’s notion of happiness scripts, I identify three gendered scripts that impact rural girls’ experiences and feelings of belonging and connection within their affective communities. I name these as follows: they become wives, country girl power, and tough femininity. These gendered scripts are imposed on, expected of, and taken up by, girls in the creation of belonging and connection to their affective communities, and in their creation of ‘home’ within the landscapes of their rural girlhood(s). The work of maneuvering through these gendered scripts of rural belonging requires that girls learn to ‘pick their battles’ and engage navigation strategies that maintain their safety and interdependent relationships, while at the same time, providing opportunities for self-actualization and self-determination. With the intention of nudging girls away from the margins and into spaces of visibility within the landscape of rurality and industrialization, this dissertation maps some of the moments in which girls become disconnected, invisible and silenced, and other moments when they appear, connect and create opportunities to live self-determined lives. By making girls subjects of their own stories, this research illuminates the ways girls share information and ideas about the people, places and things that hold meaning for them as rural girls
La perception et la production des voyelles françaises /u/ et /y/ par des étudiants anglophones universitaires dans un cours de français niveau B2
Get PDFCette thèse examine les difficultés rencontrées par les étudiants anglophones dans un cours universitaire de français de niveau B2 à percevoir et produire les /u/ et /y/ français, souvent confondus en raison de l'absence de /y/ en anglais. L'étude cherche à savoir si une perception correcte mène à une production correcte et identifie les erreurs de perception et de prononciation courantes. En utilisant des modèles tels que le Speech Learning Model (SLM; Flege, 1995) et le Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM; Best, 1995), la recherche utilise des tâches de perception et de production pour tester des hypothèses sur ces défis et la corrélation entre la perception et la production. L'objectif est de fournir des pistes pour améliorer l'enseignement de la prononciation du français aux anglophones en ce qui concerne ces contrastes de voyelles spécifiques