实验仪器使用技术

Schizophrenia, a most prevalent brain disorder, remains to be one of the least understood. Unlike Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia lacks clear pathological lesions, which has made it difficult to model in animals. However, genetic studies have recently iden ...

There is substantial evidence that psychosis is characterized by GABAergic gene promoters that are in a closed chromatin state, leading to reduced transcription of proteins essential for GABAergic and synaptic function in the forebrain. Two critical genes that are downregulated in c ...

NMDA receptor (NMDAR) hypofunction theory of schizophrenia has been assessed in rodents with pharmacological intervention and global knockout strategy of NMDAR blockade. However, these manipulations of NMDAR function have been relatively coarse, affecting all NMDA recepto ...

The absence of a pharmacological therapy that is effective in the treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI) highlights the need for further research into the secondary mechanisms that are initiated by the traumatic event, and which determine eventual neurological outcome. Various an ...

Basal ganglia infarction is typically caused by the occlusion of deep arteries and the formation of relatively small lesions called lacunes. In this report, we describe a method to induce basal ganglia infarction by photothrombosis and show some of the characteristics of the method in compa ...

The middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) is the most common rodent model to mimic large vessel occlusion in the human. The intraluminal filament MCAO technique should, theoretically, produce ischemia both in the cortex and striatum. However, collateral blood flow can contribute to ma ...

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with severe degeneration of basal ganglia neurons. Histologically, the striatum displays neurodegeneration of the intrinsic neurons of the striatum, whereas the behavioral symptoms are pr ...

This chapter is divided into three parts. In the first part, we introduce the theoretical foundation of instrumental conditioning and the commonly used methods to study it. In the second part, we review some recent work using these methods to investigate the role of the dorsal striatum in instrume ...

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disorder presenting with parkinsonism, cerebellar ataxia, and autonomic failure in various combinations. The main pathological hallmark is the formation of (oligo-) glial cytoplasmic inclusions (G ...

This chapter reviews the most common methods and protocols used to induce and assess excitotoxic lesions of the rodent striatum. Excitotoxic agents act through glutamate receptors to initiate intracellular cascades that can result in neuronal degeneration via both apoptotic and n ...

An overview is given of the structure and function of the mammalian cerebral commissures, with an emphasis on their role in interhemispheric communication. A major focus is placed on the use of commissurotomy as a method of selective disconnection of interhemispheric sensory-motor int ...

The cerebellum is a brain region that is fundamental in controlling movement. However, because �dysfunction anywhere within the motor system, from the cortex to the muscle, will result in abnormal movement, examining cerebellar motor control requires a combination of tests which eval ...

Mice with spontaneous mutations or with genetic modifications serve as models of spinocerebellar atrophy (SCA) and Friedreich’s ataxia. ATXN1, ATXN2, ATXN3, and ATXN7 transgenic mice mimic SCA1, SCA2, SCA3, and SCA7, respectively, while Spnb3 and Atxn8os null mutants mimic SCA5 and SCA8, r ...

Saccadic eye movements are rapid conjugate movements of the eyes made to align the visual axis with objects of interest. Such movements are some of the most precise and well-controlled motor responses of which the nervous system is capable, and they display an enormous range of flexibility. Beca ...

The forebrain circuits involved in coordinating the bilateral movements of the whiskers have been elucidated by a series of neuronal tracing studies aimed at characterizing the interhemispheric connections of the primary motor (MI) cortex. In some experiments, different antero ...

Here we review both modern and emerging approaches that have lead researchers to make inferences about the functional organization of the rat and mouse motor cortex. We primarily focus on the use of cortical lesions and intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) in rats and mice because rats are t ...

More is known about the neuronal basis of classical conditioning of eyeblink and other discrete responses than for any other aspect of learning. The cerebellum and its associated afferent and efferent circuits are the essential neuronal substrates for this basic form of associative lea ...

The visual system is the part of the central nervous system that detects light. It is sub-served by the �photoreceptor detectors within the eye, and this information allows creatures to build a representation of the visual world as well as regulating a whole range of subconscious physiological ...

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating condition affecting approximately 262,000 Americans with 12,000 new cases each year. In addition to the obvious motor and sensory deficits, SCI decreases life expectancy, independence and overall quality of life while increasing patient heal ...

In this chapter, we discuss why the pedunculopontine is an appropriate target in studying movement disorders, explaining its association with both the pathology and treatment of Parkinsonism. We discuss how various laboratories, including our own, have approached experimental e ...