Graduate Program in Neuroscience

Peptide therapeutics to prevent protein aggregation in Huntington’s disease

Khan, Anooshay (Bilkent University, 2022-09)

Huntington’s disease is a progressive, autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease caused by dramatic CAG repeat expansion in exon 1 of the Huntington (HTT) gene. More than 36 CAG repeats lead to the generation of mutant ...

Neural underpinnings of biological motion perception under attentional load

Çalışkan, Hilal Nizamoğlu (Bilkent University, 2022-06)

Humans can detect and differentiate biological motion from non-biological motion stimuli effortlessly, even if the stimuli were shown as simplistic as a composition of moving dots (i.e. point-light displays [PLD]). Considering ...

Effects of recreational cannabis use and subclinical psychosis risk on brain white matter integrity and structural connectivity in adolescence

Atmaca, Hande Ezgi (Bilkent University, 2022-06)

The impact of cannabis use on the psychosis risk in the healthy population has been less examined in the literature. Furthermore, previous diffusion tensor imag-ing and structural connectivity studies investigating the ...

Explicit and implicit measurement of mind perception in social robots through individual differences modulation

Saltık, İmge (Bilkent University, 2022-06)

The attribution of mental states to the object or subject that an individual interacts with according to its appearance or behavior is called mind perception (Gray et al., 2007). Recent research on human-robot interaction ...

Modulation of the neuroinflammatory response following genetic and environmental manipulations in the zebrafish (Danio Rerio)

Özen, Beyza (Bilkent University, 2022-05)

Aging is an inevitable process through which organisms experience functional and physical decline. Cellular changes such as mitochondrial dysfunction, telomere attrition, and loss of proteostasis constitute the main ...

Structural connectivity alters in pediatric systemic lupus erythematosus prior to neuropsychiatric manifestations

Eskandarian, Laleh (Bilkent University, 2022-02)

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune multi-system disorder affecting the central nervous system which may exhibit neuropsychiatric manifestations. Pediatric-onset SLE is rare and although there is an ...

Neurophysiological investigation of contrast ratio effects on metacontrast masking

Akdoğan, İrem (Bilkent University, 2021-08)

Visual masking has been used as an investigative tool to understand the dynam-ics of sensory and perceptual processing. Given that masking can also cause aware and unaware visual conditions, it has also found applications ...

Characterizing surround suppression in motion direction perception

Kurt, Aslı Gül (Bilkent University, 2021-06)

Visual perception is often achieved by surround modulation mechanisms, which help us pool individual information in our visual ﬁeld. This mechanism is also prominent in motion perception, namely motion discrimination. A ...

Effects of aging on gene expression levels of inflammatory, cytoskeletal and microglial markers in the brain using the zebrafish (Danio Rerio) model organism

Aydoğan, Hande Özge (Bilkent University, 2021-01)

Age-related cognitive decline burdens the elderly population, limiting their abil-ity to socialize and be independent. To be able to develop proper treatments, healthy aging should be examined. Previous studies focusing ...

Mineralocorticoid and glucocorticoid receptors as novel targets in breast and liver cancer therapies

Güneş, Damla (Bilkent University, 2020-12)

Cell signaling is a complex phenomenon and is maintained through intertwined signal transmissions within and in-between the cells. Anti-cancer therapies are often challenged by this fact due to crosstalk-associated ...

Spatial attention and paracontrast masking

Konyalı, Afife (Bilkent University, 2021-01)

Visual masking is a powerful methodological tool to investigate the dynamics of sensory processing associated with object visibility and identity. Previous paracontrast masking studies revealed three distinct components ...

Investigating the effects of perceptual learning on the function and microstructure of the visual cortex

Erişen, Dilara (Bilkent University, 2020-12)

Perceptual learning is the long-term improvement of the ability to process sensory stimuli through experience. Although an extensively studied field, the mechanism and locus of plasticity underlying visual perceptual ...

Analysis of differentially expressed genes in bipolar disorder: transcriptomic signature of adolescence and young adulthood in working memory-relared area

Şen, Rabia (Bilkent University, 2020-11)

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a heritable severe illness. One of the indications of BD is working memory (WM) impairment which is a heritable cognitive trait. The aim of the current study is to identify the transcriptomic ...

Dynamic alternative splicing events in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during adolescence-young adulthood period and implications for schizophrenia

Çelikbaş, Kübra (Bilkent University, 2020-11)

Alternative splicing (AS) or differential exon usage (DEU) is a regular process after gene expression and it contributes to the diversity of the genome by generating multiple protein isoforms. According to recent studies, ...

Effects of varying levels and differing durations of calorie restriction on cellular and synaptic proteins, as well as the inflammatory state of the female mouse brain

Macaroğlu, Duygu (Bilkent University, 2020-09)

Aging is an inevitable and complicated process leading to functional decline. Regarding brain aging, cognitive decline takes place in multiple domains, including learning, memory, executive functions, motor coordination, ...