实验仪器使用技术

Inflammation and autoimmune responses after spinal cord injury (SCI) are complex processes involving sequential cellular and molecular changes in cells of the innate and adaptive immune systems. In preclinical animal models of SCI and human SCI, immune responses have been implicat ...

The H-reflex, the electrical analog of the spinal stretch reflex (SSR) is mediated largely by a wholly spinal, primarily two-neuron pathway. Because this pathway is influenced by descending pathways from the brain, these spinal reflexes can be operantly conditioned. Motivated by a paradi ...

Electrophysiological assays following experimental spinal cord injury objectively evaluate neurological function in the rodent. Major descending and ascending tracts can be monitored noninvasively using motor-evoked potentials and somatosensory-evoked poten ...

The severity of injury and degree of recovery following experimental spinal cord injury (SCI) utilizing several electrophysiological tests (SSEP, MEP, H-reflex) are described in other chapters. This chapter summarizes tests of spinal cord physiology, including spinal cord blood ...

This chapter focuses on the assessment of spinal cord microvessels which are lost at the injury epicenter within 24 h after spinal cord contusion or compression in adult rats and mice. The penumbral blood vessels undergo angiogenesis during the first and second week possibly contributing to ...

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in a large proliferative response that serves to restore homeostatis and replenish cellular deficits. Postinjury repair and recovery can be interrogated as a function of the cell fates adopted by progenitors within the lesion. Administration of bromo ...

Deficits in sensory and motor function after spinal cord injury (SCI) are attributable primarily to the interruption of long sensory and motor axonal tracts in the spinal cord. How to exquisitely label these tracts within the spinal cord and their connections to the brain or periphery continu ...

Hand shaping in the rat (Rattus norvegicus) is adapted to many functions, including walking, climbing, exploration, and skilled manipulation. An understanding of hand movement can provide insights into the neural control of movement and the impairments that result from brain injury. H ...

Successful animal models of spinal cord injury (SCI) are dependent on outcome measures sensitive to minute functional differences following injury. Computer-assisted gait analyses provide an objective measurement of numerous gait characteristics, including but not limit ...

Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) frequently occurs to the cervical segments. Regaining arm and hand function is the highest priority for persons with tetraplegia after cervical SCI. Given the tremendous impact that therapeutic changes of hand and arm function would have on the quality of ...

Animal models serve to imitate (patho) physiological states and/or phenotypical characteristics known to occur in target species (usually man but sometimes other species as well). The use of animal models has had and may continue to have a tremendous impact on medical progress. Laboratory ...

This chapter aims to encourage scientists and others interested in the use of animal models of disease – specifically, in the study of dementia – to engage in ethical reflection. It opens with a general discussion of the moral acceptability of animal use in research. Three ethical approaches are he ...

Early-onset familial and late-onset dementia of the Alzheimer-type account for the major proportion of cases of dementia and of neurodegenerative diseases in general. The number of affected individuals is likely to grow in the decades to come due to demographic changes and rising life expe ...

When establishing animal models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the aim is to mimic (certain aspects of) the human condition. However, species, strain, and gender specific features interfere with this goal. Only a few species, like primates, dogs, and bears, spontaneously develop histopatho ...

Dopaminergic neuronal cell degeneration is the principal characteristic feature of the neuropathology of Parkinson’s disease. Cultures of mesencephalic neurons are widely used as a source of dopaminergic neurons for the study of mechanisms implicated in dopaminergic cell dea ...

Glial cell activation plays an important role in the pathogenesis of various neurodegenerative disorders. This article presents a protocol for the preparation of cultures consisting of rat embryonic cortical neurons grown in the presence of cortical microglia, in which the glia are pr ...

The protocol described in this chapter covers the preparation and culture of enriched populations of microglia, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes from the cortex and spinal cord of neonatal rat and mouse. The procedure is based on the enzymatic digestion of tissue, followed by the culture of a ...

Neurons cultured from rodent central nervous system tissues represent an important tool in the study of neurodegenerative disease mechanisms and neuroregenerative processes, including the survival- and axon growth-promoting properties of neurotrophic factors. This cha ...

Neurons cultured from rodent central nervous system tissues represent an important tool in the study of neurodegenerative disease mechanisms and neuroregenerative processes, including the survival- and axon growth–promoting properties of neurotrophic factors. This cha ...

The mammalian brain contains undifferentiated, mitotically active, and multipotent neural stem/progenitor cells that in vivo contribute new neurons and glia to specific areas of the mature brain. When isolated under the appropriate conditions, these cells maintain in vitro the ab ...