Poster presentation; ASPS Symposium @ UCA

Author: Mason Lucus | Major: Biology | Semester: Spring 2025

My research topic, in collaboration with Dr. Josiah Leong, is centered around adolescents and experiences that could potentially predispose them to substance abuse and potentially dependency disorders. The specific neuroanatomy I am studying could provide a mechanism for why this predisposition exists. I was very intrigued with drug rehabilitation and prevention research, and with the findings I have gathered there may be a targetable activity (social interaction) that is able to eliminate or mitigate some potential risk factors for those problems. If we could gather some more significant results that indicate how correlated social interaction and/or bullying is with certain risky behaviors like alcohol consumption, there could be extensive research in this field to help fix this problem in adolescents. I would love nothing more than to see my research make an impact on somebody else’s life, especially in the context of maybe reversing their predisposition to drug abuse.

I was introduced to Dr. Leong my freshman year through a project in Honors Chemistry II in which I had to interview a professor about their research. I was immediately intrigued by his research on reward pursuit and ended up reaching out to him about a year later to begin my own research. I’ve lost multiple close family members as a direct result of drug addiction and/or overdose, so this topic is extremely personal to me and continues to fuel my passion for psychology and medicine in general. The intrigue behind the social isolation aspect came from a paper I read that introduced the relationship behind social interactions like bullying and propensity for alcohol consumption in mice. Through the process of my research I have learned so much about neuroanatomy and specific connections involved in reward pursuit and inhibition. I was also able to develop two hypotheses about the relationship between social experiences and strength of connection in certain brain tracts. These two hypotheses ended up being correct with significant results. I found that in adolescents experiencing social isolation, connectivity between the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala was impaired, and connectivity between the amygdala and nucleus accumbens (NAcc) was strengthened. I have also proposed a mechanism that could explain this. The PFC sends inhibitory and excitatory signals to the amygdala to order reward pursuit or avoidance, and stressful experiences like social isolation or bullying could specifically degrade this connection to where the inhibitory signal is damaged, but the excitatory connection remains in tact. This would lead to hyperactivity in the amygdala, which is able to more frequently communicate to the NAcc and lead to pursuit of risky behaviors or enticing rewards, like drugs or gambling. This mechanism would explain why there is a weakened connection in the PFC-amygdala, and a stronger one in the amygdala-NAcc. Throughout the ongoing research process I have had to overcome difficulties in learning how to code in order to accurately sort data and develop figures for presentation. Coding was a completely new world to me, but in order to answer the questions I had, I needed to learn how to do it. My mentor, Josiah, has been nothing but extremely helpful and has been absolutely incredible in assisting me throughout this project. He has helped me countless times figure out specific coding troubles, answered anatomy questions, suggested literature, and facilitated registration for the symposium I attended in April. Ethan Ellis, a graduate assistant, was also incredibly helpful in helping me with coding issues, specifically assisting me with the figures for my poster presentation. The symposium I attended was the ASPS held at UCA, and it was such a great experience to be a part of. I saw such impressive work being displayed by fellow undergraduates and had multiple conversations about psychology and research in general with students and faculty members.

For future directions I would really like to narrow down my hypothesis on the specific mechanism for this relationship I’ve discovered. This will include continued literature research over the summer and more work with our anatomy and connectivity data. I also plan on attending the SFN Conference in San Diego in November, where I hope to present a poster or give a presentation on my research that will be improved and even more prepared by then. I also plan on having my work published in a scientific journal by next spring. I am more than excited to continue this project and find answers to the never-ending questions I have about neuroscience.