17 Comments

  2. Great job on your presentation! I really like how clear your information and results were. I did have a question were you expecting those results or was there something different you were expecting?

    1. Hello Juliet!

      Thank you for watching my presentation! We did expect to see some significant difference in the choices based on diets due to some previous research conducted by Dr. Catherine Steele. We wanted to specifically see if the type of fat (Lard vs Vegetable Oil) had any significant impact as well as whether a palatable vs non palatable reward would have a difference. This was our main interest as well as inflammation in the brain that is still under investigation.

      Thanks again!

      Kourtney Rumback

  3. Nicely presented! I loved how simple and clear your information was and how you pointed to sections you were talking about. I was wondering what your hypothesis was on this experiment.

    1. Hi Camille!

      Thank you for watching my presentation! We hypothesized that the high-fat diets should increase impulsivity regardless of the pellet types used (increase in impulsive decision-making), but more palatable pellets may show greater impulsivity (greater arousal interfering with inhibition caused by the reward value). I hope this answers your question!

      Thanks Again!

      Kourtney Rumback

  4. What an amazing presentation Kourtney! You were very fun to listen to! The relationship between the intake of food on the outward behavior of the rats really shows that the difference between high fat and low fat is very important! I had a question, is a specific benchmark percentage of high fat required for the rats to have impulsive decisions? Or are these tendencies based on any amount/range of high fat consumed?

    1. Hi Michaela!

      Thank you for watching my presentation! To answer your question about benchmark percentages, we did not have a specific percentage that we were looking for. We knew from previous research by Dr. Catherine Steele that the rats did in fact gain weight on high-fat diets. We predicted that the diet has an impact on behavior regardless of visceral body fat, as well as produces inflammation in the brain. This neural inflammation has yet to be confirmed yet.

      Thanks again!

      Kourtney Rumback

  5. Amazing job Kourtney! I liked how you made comparisons to real-life situations to make your research more clear. While listening to your presentation, I could tell you enjoyed working on your research.

  7. Kourtney, great work! The display is organized and the results you found are very interesting. Thank you for sharing your research.

  8. Kourtney,

    Thank you for sharing about your research!
    I think it is an important topic to study! I appreciate the flow, graphics, and choice of language in your presentation. It looks like there is no significant effect of the type of diet. I was wondering if there is a need for a longitudinal study to monitor and measure the effect.

    Thank you.

    1. Hi Saya!

      Thank you for watching my presentation! I also miss you a ton and hope you are doing well! To answer your question about a need for a longitudinal study, I personally am not sure how lengthening this study would impact the behavior any differently. I would predict that there may be a more significant difference in the behavior separation of the high-fat and low-fat diets. I hypothesize that the biggest difference would be seen in the brain inflammation, which is still under investigation.

      Thanks again!

      Kourtney Rumback

    2. Hi Saya!

      Thanks for watching my presentation! I miss you and hope you are doing well! To answer your question, I am unsure how a longitudinal study would impact the behavioral results. In my personal prediction, I would hypothesize that there would be a more significant difference between the high-fat and low-fat diet groups. I also predict that there would be more changes in the brain inflammation in the rats which is currently under investigation. Overall, I am not sure if lengthening this specific experiment would provide any different behavioral data when looking specifically at impulsive choice, but there may be a longitudinal effect on pellet preference.

      I hope this answers your question!

      Thanks again!

      Kourtney Rumback

  9. I like your research Kourtney!
    I like how clear your graphs were to understand and the matter in which you presented your research. I was wondering if you were expecting the results you obtained or if you expected something different when researching this?

    1. Hi Carolina!

      Thank you for watching my presentation! To answer your question, we were expecting the high-fat groups to make more impulsive choices as compared to the low-fat groups. We did expect to see a difference in the two pellet types due to the arousal causing inhibition in choice, which was not seen here. We did not know to what extent, if any, the pellet type would have on choice. I hope this answers your question!

      Thanks again!

      Kourtney Rumback

  10. Nice presentation! I really found your topic interesting as it can be really important to know how our diet can affect us in our lives. With that being said, what made you choose this topic or how did you come across it?

  11. I really enjoyed your presentation! The hypothesis and results were very intriguing! Moving forward, how do you plan to test how food-demand is related to the neuroinflammation in the frontal regions of the brain?

Leave a Reply