Mike Marshall's Virtual Mandolin Orchestra

In case you haven't seen it, Mike Marshall mixed a bunch of his students playing Lonesome Moonlight Waltz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS860XKgma4

Tiffany Defense

I have the details sorted for my thesis defense and thought you may be interested.  I can't guarantee Netflix-level entertainment, but if you're not careful, you may learn something!

In the meantime, stay healthy and sane!

~ Tiffany

Time: Thursday, May 7, 9:00 am (Central Time)

Meeting ID: 988 4848 3113
Zoom Meeting: https://umn.zoom.us/j/98848483113 
Join by SIP: 98848483113@zoomcrc.com 

Thesis title: "Pacinian Corpuscles in Dupuytren Disease"
Abstract:

The sense of touch is processed by the somatosensory system in which mechanoreceptors are the sensory neurons that translate mechanical stimuli into neural impulses by using specialized mechanoreceptive end organs.  Pacinian corpuscles (PCs) are the mechanoreceptor responsible for sensing low-amplitude, high-frequency vibrations.  In this thesis, I explored how vibrotactile perception is mediated by the PCs using a combination of computational modeling, benchtop experiments on donor tissue, and psychophysical tests.  We investigated the effect that Dupuytren disease (DD) has on vibrotactile perception.  Dupuytren disease is a progressive hand disorder in which growth and densitification of fibrous tissue in the palms eventually causes the affected fingers to bend irreversibly.  DD usually presents clinically after the age of 50, affects about 3 per 10,000 adults, and is associated with alterations to the size and the internal structure of PCs.  By measuring vibrotactile sensitivity in healthy and DD subjects, we found that women are more sensitive to high-frequency vibrations than men and that men with DD may exhibit reduced sensitivity compared to men without DD.  We also found that, for patients in which DD presents unilaterally, the finger with DD is less sensitive than the corresponding finger on the unaffected hand.  These data may serve as a useful reference to future DD researchers and may facilitate development of novel diagnostic or prognostic protocols.  Finally, we designed a system to measure the viscoelastic properties of the PC and tested isolated human cadaveric PCs from donors with and without DD to better understand how the mechanoreceptor's viscoelastic properties affect vibrotactile perception.