Jessica Lynn Verpeut

Arizona State University | ASU · Department of Psychology

Introduction: Obesity is a known health risk for the development of several preventable diseases. Obesity-related metabolic alterations negatively impact different physiological mechanisms, which supports the rationale for the use of combined drug therapy. Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist for the treatment of opioid and alcohol dependency, where...

Clinical studies indicate alternate day, intermittent fasting (IMF) protocols result in meaningful weight loss in obese individuals. To further understand the mechanisms sustaining weight loss by IMF, we investigated the metabolic and neural alterations of IMF in obese mice. Male C57/BL6 mice were fed a high-fat diet (HFD; 45 fat) ad libitum for 8...

Prolonged consumption of ketogenic diets (KD) has reported neuroprotective benefits. Several studies suggest KD interventions could be useful in the management of neurological and developmental disorders. Alterations in the Engrailed (En) genes, specifically Engrailed 2 (En2), have neurodevelopmental consequences and produce autism-related behavior...

Cerebellar lobules form reciprocal loops with neocortical regions associated with executive functions, but the functional significance of those connections is not well explored. We hypothesized that disrupting activity in of these cerebellar regions would perturb one or more executive domains: (1) social choice and behavioral inhibition (2) cogniti...

The cerebellum, identified to be active during cognitive and social behavior, has multisynaptic connections through the cerebellar nuclei (CN) and thalamus to cortical regions, yet formation and modulation of these pathways are not fully understood. Perineuronal nets (PNNs) respond to changes in local cellular activity and emerge during development...

In an effort to increase access to neuroscience education in underserved communities, we created an educational program that utilizes a simple task to measure place preference of the cockroach ( Gromphadorhina portentosa ) and the open-source free software, SLEAP Estimates Animal Poses (SLEAP) to quantify behavior. Cockroaches ( n = 18) were traine...

Despite perinatal damage to the cerebellum being one of the highest risk factors for later being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it is not yet clear how the cerebellum might influence the development of cerebral cortex and whether this co-developmental process is distinct between neurotypical and ASD children. Leveraging a large stru...

Neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Fragile X syndrome, are often characterized by neurons connecting incorrectly, leading to impairments in learning, memory and cognitive flexibility (Schmitt et al., 2022). Yet the brain can reorganize itself in response to an organism’s changing needs by altering the strength and number of connections (or synap...

The cerebellum, traditionally associated with motor coordination and balance, also plays a crucial role in various aspects of higher-order function and dysfunction. Emerging research has shed light on the cerebellum's broader contributions to cognitive, emotional, and reward processes. The cerebellum's influence on autonomic function further highli...

Despite its strong interconnectivity with the cerebral cortex, the influence of the human cerebellum on neocortical structure and its role in the development of neuropsychiatric disorders is unclear. Because cerebellar damage in early postnatal life creates a high risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), we investigated inter-relationships in cereb...

The cerebellum regulates nonmotor behavior, but the routes of influence are not well characterized. Here we report a necessary role for the posterior cerebellum in guiding a reversal learning task through a network of diencephalic and neocortical structures, and in flexibility of free behavior. After chemogenetic inhibition of lobule VI vermis or h...

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) has great potential as a source of treatments for conditions that might respond to potent and ubiquitous transgene expression. However, among its drawbacks, the genetic "payload" of AAV vectors is limited to <4.9kb and some commonly used gene promoters are sizeable and susceptible to transcriptional silencing. We recent...

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) has shown great translational potential in treating a variety of diseases often requiring strong and ubiquitous transgene expression. However, the genetic payload of AAV vectors is limited to <4.9 kb and some commonly used gene promoters are large in sizeable and susceptible to transcriptional silencing. We validated a...

Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are one of the most widely used types of viral vectors for research and gene therapy. AAV vectors are safe, have a low immunogenic profile, and provide efficient and long-term transgene expression in a variety of tissues and organs targeted by a specific serotype. Despite these unique features, therapeutic applicatio...

Transsynaptic viral tracing requires tissue sectioning, manual cell counting, and anatomical assignment, all of which are time intensive. We describe a protocol for BrainPipe, a scalable software for automated anatomical alignment and object counting in light-sheet microscopy volumes. BrainPipe can be generalized to new counting tasks by using a ne...

Adeno‐associated viruses (AAVs) are one of the most widely used types of viral vectors for research and gene therapy. AAV vectors are safe, have a low immunogenic profile, and provide efficient and long‐term transgene expression in a variety of tissues and organs targeted by a specific serotype. Despite these unique features, therapeutic applicatio...

Background Repetitive action, resistance to environmental change and fine motor disruptions are hallmarks of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorders, and vary considerably from individual to individual. In animal models, conventional behavioral phenotyping captures such fine-scale variations incompletely. Here we obser...

The cerebellum regulates nonmotor behavior, but the routes by which it exerts its influence are not well characterized. Here we report a necessary role for the posterior cerebellum in guiding a reversal learning task, acting through a network of diencephalic and neocortical structures. After chemogenetic inhibition of Purkinje cells in lobule VI or...

Women are vulnerable to developing mental disorders that are associated with circulating estrogens. Estrogens, especially 17β-estradiol (E2), have a wide array of effects on the brain, affecting many behavioral endpoints associated with mental illness. By using a total estrogen receptor (ER) α knockout (KO), an ERα knock in/knock out (KIKO) that la...

Recombinant adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) allow rapid and efficient gene delivery in the nervous system. AAVs are widely used in research and are the basis of multiple FDA-approved gene therapies. Here, we find that the immune response to AAV's genome reduces dendritic complexity in mammalian cortex. Dendritic loss associated with AAV-mediated ge...

Cerebellar outputs take polysynaptic routes to reach the rest of the brain, impeding conventional tracing. Here, we quantify pathways between the cerebellum and forebrain by using transsynaptic tracing viruses and a whole-brain analysis pipeline. With retrograde tracing, we find that most descending paths originate from the somatomotor cortex. Ante...

Background: Repetitive action, resistance to environmental change, and fine motor disruptions are hallmarks of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorders, and vary considerably from individual to individual. In animal models, conventional behavioral phenotyping captures such fine-scale variations incompletely. Here, we ai...

Adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors are an established and safe gene delivery tool to target the nervous system. However, the payload capacity of <4.9 kb limits the transfer of large or multiple genes. Oversized payloads could be delivered by fragmenting the transgenes into separate AAV capsids that are then mixed. This strategy could increase the...

A bstract Autism is noted for both its genotypic and phenotypic diversity. Repetitive action, resistance to environmental change, and motor disruptions vary from individual to individual. In animal models, conventional behavioral phenotyping captures such fine-scale variations incompletely. Here we use advances in computer vision and deep learning...

Recombinant adeno-associated viruses (rAAV) are used as gene therapy vectors to treat central nervous system (CNS) diseases. Despite their safety and broad tropism, important issues need to be corrected such as the limited payload capacity and the lack of small gene promoters providing long-term, pan-neuronal transgene expression in the CNS. Common...

Cerebellar outputs take polysynaptic routes to reach the rest of the brain, impeding conventional tracing. Here we quantify pathways between cerebellum and forebrain using transsynaptic tracing viruses and a whole-brain quantitative analysis pipeline. Retrograde tracing found a majority of descending paths originating from somatomotor cortex. Anter...

Recombinant adeno-associated viral vectors (rAAV) are used as gene therapy vectors to treat central nervous system (CNS) diseases. Despite their safety and broad tropism, important issues need to be corrected such as the limited payload capacity and the lack of small gene promoters providing long-term, pan-neuronal transgene expression in the CNS....

Development of brain circuitry requires precise regulation and timing of proliferation and differentiation of neural progenitor cells. The p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) is highly expressed in the proliferating granule cell precursors (GCPs) during development of the cerebellum. In a previous paper, we showed that proNT3 promoted GCP cell cycle...

Cognitive and social capacities require postnatal experience, yet the pathways by which experience guides development are unknown. Here we show that the normal development of motor and nonmotor capacities requires cerebellar activity. Using chemogenetic perturbation of molecular layer interneurons to attenuate cerebellar output in mice, we found th...

Genetic variation in nicotinic receptor alpha 5 (CHRNA5) has been associated with increased risk of addiction-associated phenotypes in humans yet little is known the underlying neural basis. Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were derived from donors homozygous for either the major (D398) or the minor (N398) allele of the nonsynonymous single n...

Alternate day, intermittent fasting (IMF) can promote weight loss in obese individuals. We investigated the metabolic and neural mechanisms of IMF in diet‐induced obese mice. Twenty‐four C57 male mice at PND 49 were fed a high‐fat diet (HFD; 45% fat, 20% protein, 35% CHO) ad libitum for 8 wks. Following this, for 4 wks, mice (n = 8/group) were main...

A ketogenic diet (KD) improves pediatric epilepsy and has beneficial neural effects by unknown mechanisms. The following studies used Engrailed 2 (En2-/-) knockout (KO) male mice, which have provided insight into neural systems affected by this transcription factor and autistic-like behaviors. En2-/- mice have reduced social behavior, low body weig...

Stress is often associated with binge eating. A critical component of the control of stress is the central norepinephrine system. We investigated how dietary-induced binge eating alters central norepinephrine and related behaviors. Young male Sprague Dawley rats received calorie deprivation (24 h) and /or intermittent sweetened fat (vegetable short...

White-throated sparrows increase fat deposits during pre-migratory periods and rely on these fat stores to fuel migration. Adipose tissue produces hormones and signaling factors in a rhythmic fashion and may be controlled by a clock in adipose tissue or driven by a master clock in the brain. The master clock may convey photoperiodic information fro...

Shown is a segment of a video recording taken during the night under infrared illumination. Video images show intense activity, including wing-whirring, features which were used to determine whether a bird was exhibiting nocturnal migratory restlessness. (WMV)

Central noradrenergic pathways are involved in feeding and cardiovascular control, physiological processes altered by obesity. The present studies determined how high-fat feeding and body weight gain alter the sensitivity to the feeding suppression and neural activation to a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, nisoxetine. Acute administrat...

Background: Binge eating is often accompanied with a “sense of loss of control” over feeding. These episodes are sometimes triggered by stressful situations in humans. Brain norepinephrine (NE) has a critical role to regulate stress and food intake. These experiments examined whether dietary-induced binge eating altered brain NE. Methods: Male SD r...

Adolescence is a critical period of development. These experiments were designed to determine how adolescent dietary experiences affect adult feeding and metabolism. For our initial experiments, body weight and feeding behavior were measured in adolescent rats. Four groups of male Sprague Dawley rats (PND 32) were exposed to the following dietary c...

Seasonal rhythms of hyperphagia and fat deposition provide migratory birds with the energy needed to complete seasonal migration events which may last thousands of miles. Fat is an endocrine organ; consequently, the amounts of fat hormones in the blood could indicate the status of fat stores. These signals could be seasonal cues for timing rhythms...