<p> Oral cavity cancer (OCC) is a type of cancer of the lip, tongue, salivary glands and other sites in the mouth <i>(buccal or oral cavity)</i> and is the sixth leading cause of cancer worldwide. Patients with OCC are treated based on a staging system: low-stage patients typically receive less aggressive therapy compared to high-stage patients. Unfortunately, low-stage patients are sometimes at risk for locoregional recurrence. Recently, a semi-quantitative risk scoring system has been developed to assess the locoregional recurrence risk for low-stage patients. This risk scoring system is based on tissue characteristics determined on 2D histopathology images under a microscope. This modality limits the appreciation of the 3D architecture of the tumor and its associated morphological features. This thesis aims to visualize 3D models of the tumor-host interface reconstructed from serially-sectioned histopathology slides and quantify their clinically validated morphological features to predict locoregional recurrence after treatment. The 3D models are developed and quantified for 6 patient cases using readily available tools. This pilot study provides a framework for an automated diagnostic technique for 3D visualization and morphological analysis of tumor biology which is traditionally done using 2D analysis.</p>

<p> Most people choose to listen to music that they prefer or like such as classical, country or rock. Previous research has focused on how different characteristics of music (i.e., classical versus country) affect the brain. Yet, when listening to preferred music regardless of the type&mdash;people report they often experience personal thoughts and memories. To date, understanding how this occurs in the brain has remained elusive. Using network science methods, I evaluated differences in functional brain connectivity when individuals listened to complete songs. Here the results reveal that a circuit important for internally focused thoughts, known as the default mode network, was most connected when listening to preferred music. The results also reveal that listening to a favorite song alters the connectivity between auditory brain areas and the hippocampus, a region responsible for memory and social emotion consolidation. Given that musical preferences are uniquely individualized phenomena and that music can vary in acoustic complexity and the presence or absence of lyrics, the consistency of these results was contrary to previous neuroscientific understanding. These findings may explain why comparable emotional and mental states can be experienced by people listening to music that differs as widely as Beethoven and Eminem. The neurobiological and neurorehabilitation implications of these results are discussed.</p>

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