Scarsdale Students Push Limits of Science

John Jay High School senior Vikas Shetty believes the DPP6 hormone can be used to increase learning and memory, by balancing the presence of prion proteins within the hippocampus.

Shetty, 17, was one of more than 280 students from throughout the area who presented their scientific findings at the Westchester-Rockland Junior Science and Humanities Symposium at John Jay High School Saturday.

In Shetty's case, the object of the research was to draw a possible link between between DPP6 proteins and prions, with an overabundance or lack of either having potential negative consequence, like epilepsy and ADHD, said Shetty.

He said that in mice, the added DPP6 tends to cause prions to exit the cell membrane. Shetty found there were less prions in the presence of more DPP6 and more prions with less DPP6.

"In order to be able to be active, it (the prion) has to be in the cell membrane," said Shetty. "Prions are a natural conformer present in the brain.
They may be implicated in learning and memory."

The symposium is a sub-regional event that pre-qualifies students to compete at the Upstate JSHS in Albany, which has been hosted by SUNY Albany
since 1985, and aided by funding from the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force through a grant given by the Academy of Applied Science.

All speaker session finalists from yesterday's symposium will attent the Upstate Regional symposium. Those finalists will become delegates to the
National symposium.

Many students used findings from studies that used mice as a jumping off point in their research. Horace Greeley High School senior Matthew Gingrich
found that sperm produced by older males could lead to autism in offspring.

"A male at 47 years old is 5.75 times more likely than a father of 27 years old," said Gingrich, 17.

In short, an older male's sperm has had the chance to go through more instances of replication, which can affect the overall integrity of the sperm,
he said.

John Jay senior Brendan Kelly used human subjects to recognize emotional changes in adolescent Caucasian males who participate in single-player,
cooperative and multiplayer video games. He found that emotions of happiness and boredom were statistically significant in his findings, as
happiness increased while boredom decreased.

Feelings of defeat increased as well, particularly when more people were playing. However, those feelings of defeat seemed to relate to
a greater sense of overall victory. Interestingly, feelings of victory were not as strong in instances where players defeated the computer, as opposed to
another player.

In another test of stimuli, Byram Hills High School senior Jonathan Cziner, studied the effects of unexpected musical notes as novel stimuli,
specifically those from Beethoven's Egmont Overture.

"When listening to a musical phrase, we're expecting a certain note," he said. But Beethoven, who was less a part of the popular music scene
as someone like Mozart, used unexpected notes, which catch the listener off guard, said Cziner.

He used the example of an F scale.

"You go from F, then to G, then A, and B flat. You expect the next note to be C," said Cziner. "But Beethoven put in a B natural." The point of his
study wasn't to find if people took the stimuli as pleasant or stressful, but rather to measure the P300 amplitude response in the brain, which
was significant. The Armonk resident has been accepted early admission into New York University's musical composition program.

Suffern High School senior Phoebe Kurtzman is interested in utilizing the healing properties offered by nature to relieve even serious illnesses.

In the interest of botanical medicine, she used three groups of mice with Alzheimers to tell what exactly in grape seed extract causes improvements
in memory. If a mouse has one toy, and is given another, it will likely choose the new one over the old one becauseit is already familiar
and bored with the former. But mice with Alzheimers will go back to the old toy, said Kurtzman.

She said it was already known that grape seed extract helped with cognitive losses associated with Azheimer's, but it's not really understood why.

Kurtzman found it's likely because of the monomers in the extract.

Her conclusion, and title of her project was, "A grape-seed polyphenolic extract isolate enriched for monomeric polyphenolic components attenuates the
progression of Alzheimer's disease."

Of the three groups of mice studied, one was treated with water and another with the grape seed extract, while the third was given the
monomer-enriched version. Kurtzman found that mice given the monomer spent significantly more time with the new toy, meaning they still remembered the old one, which suggests it is the monomoers within grape seed extract that affect cognitive ability.

Kurtzman said she looks forward to continuing her research at Dartmouth.

Finalists:

Behavior 1
1st: Lindsey Keeney, Ossining
2nd: Melissa Rosenbaum, Blind Brook
3rd: Laura Schenkel, Irvington
4th: Christina Song, Scarsdale
5th: Cheryl Cho, Horace Greeley

Behavior 2
1st: Camila Lineman, Ossining
2nd: Madeleine LaRue, Sleepy Hollow
3rd: Simon de Carvalho, Mamaroneck
4th: Allison Gofman, Hendrick Hudson
5th: Elyssa Swanson, Sleepy Hollow

Biochemistry
1st: Jovy Paily, Briarcliff
2nd: Nikhyl Jhangiani, Edgemont
3rd: Kainath Ahsan, Suffern
4th: Lingzi Ouyang, Ossining
5th: Florence Kuhl, Ossining

Biology 1
1st: Erica James, Briarcliff
2nd: Laura Hellmich, Ossining
3rd: Samantha Wesner, Horace Greeley
4th: Rachel Cawkwell, Byram Hills
5th: Sean Maiorano, Ossining

Biology 2
1st: Tobias Gellen, Scarsdale
2nd: Natalie Roher, Horace Greeley
3rd: Sara Joseph, Fox Lane
4th: Frank Zheng, Horace Greeley
5th: Evelyn Jagoda, Edgemont

Chemistry
1st: Gregory Ellson, Briarcliff
2nd: Ian Schneider, Byram Hills
3rd: Christopher Chung, Yorktown
4th: James Emerick, Ossining
5th: Benjamin Fischberg, John Jay

Envioronmental Science
1st: Madeline Yozwiak, Ursaline
2nd: Adam Krebs, Horace Greeley
3rd: Adam Fry, Sleepy Hollow 
4th: Rebecca Gibson, Eastchester
5th: Colden Lyons, Ossining

Medicine 1
1st: Jason Kaufman, Byram Hills
2nd: Julie Qiu, John Jay
3rd: Sarah Essleborn, John Jay
4th: Sarah Shiovitz, Ossining
5th: Joshua Ackerman, New Rochelle

Medicine 2
1st: Layla Rajan, Yorktown
2nd: Rachel Occhiogrosso, Byram Hills
3rd: Lily Kosminsky, Byram Hills
4th: Paraskeve Plestis, Edgemont
5th: Benjamin Chang, Edgemont

Medicine 3
1st: Elbert Heng, Yorktown
2nd: Chloe Lee, John Jay
3rd: Jesse Yuan, Yorktown
4th: Katherine Liu, Edgemont
5th: Justin Hsing, Briarcliff