实验仪器使用技术

Spinal microglia have been implicated in the pathogenesis of neuropathic pain after peripheral nerve injury concomitant with diseases such as diabetes and cancer. To reveal the etiological roles of microglia in behavioral pain hypersensitivity or neuronal excitability, techn ...

In vivo imaging with two-photon microscopy is becoming an indispensable technique to investigate cellular and subcellular phenomenon in living tissues including the central nervous system. This microscopy enables to image dynamics of molecules, morphology, and excitability ...

Confocal imaging of brain slices is a worthwhile analysis method to study the structure and function of resting and activated microglia with submicrometer resolution. This chapter will focus on acquisition of high-resolution confocal image stacks where we will discuss the technical ...

The generation of bone marrow radiation chimeric mice is a beneficial tool to utilize when studying inflammation of the central nervous system (CNS). It is widely accepted that blood-derived progenitors are capable of populating the CNS during chronic diseases and severe injuries; howe ...

Microglia are the resident immune cells of the central nervous system, and accumulating data demonstrates a vast array of tasks in the healthy and injured brain. Microglia participate in both innate and adaptive immune responses. These cells contribute to the brain homeostasis, includi ...

Animal models of neuroinflammatory processes are needed to study the involvement of inflammation in neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. One of the models used is based on lipopolysaccharide (LPS) as brain inflammation-inducing agent. This ...

Reactive oxygen and nitrogen species are both regulators and effectors of microglial activation, and assays of these oxidants can be used as a measure of acute and chronic activation of microglial cells. Here we describe quick methods to assess the production of superoxide, hydrogen perox ...

Cytokine measurement is a prerequisite to understand the inflammatory state of the body. Quantitative analysis of cytokines by Western blotting and ELISA is a daunting task as these are time-consuming and error-prone protocols. With the advent of flow cytometry, the estimation of cytok ...

Cytokine production by activated microglia is one of the hallmarks of inflammatory response in the CNS. The cytokines released by microglia cells can be very different depending on the proinflammatory stimulus. Traditionally, to quantify these different cytokines, the “Sandwich” ...

In situ hybridization is a powerful tool for visualizing cellular gene expression in morphologically preserved brain tissue giving precise information on the regional expression of specific mRNA sequences in cells of diverse phenotype. Here, we describe a sensitive, simple, and rob ...

Microglial cells are the resident immune-related glial cells of the central nervous system (CNS) that are crucial for maintaining homeostasis and sensing pathological alterations in the nervous system. To improve our understanding of the biological function of microglia, gene-t ...

The study of the neural substrates of reinforcement has been facilitated greatly by the diversity of behavioral indices of reinforcement accessible to investigators. Intracranial self-stimlation (ICSS), intravenous self-administration (SA), conditioned approach/av ...

The “recreational” use of drugs in North America is common. The majority of the adult population ingests alcohol occasionally, and caffeine daily. One in three adults uses nicotine habitually, and a smaller but nonetheless disturbing number of people become addicted to opiates, barbitur ...

The study of behavior in operant conditioning laboratories has led to some unusually successful techniques that are now widely exploited in experimental psychopharmacology. Indeed, it can even be argued that the emergence of a truly inter-disciplinary science of psychopharmaco ...

This chapter is neither a pharmacopeia of agents that affect drinking behavior nor a summary of what we have learned about the control of thirst from pharmacological studies. Readers will find some of each, but my major focus is on the approaches used to identify mechanisms of actions of drugs on water i ...

Research into the effects of drugs on feeding has been guided by an interest in the neurochemical mechanisms involved in the control of food intake and by a desire to find safe, effective pharmacological treatments for feeding disorders such as obesity. Many experiments in the field have reveal ...

Animal pain tests have been developed primarily for the screening of potential analgesic drugs. In this context, the most important characteristic of a test is that it correctly identify compounds that are analgesic in pathological pain in humans and correctly eliminate compounds with ...

The goal of psychopharmacology is twofold: to study the behavioral effects of drugs in order to elucidate mechanisms of drug action and to use drugs as tools in order to ascertain underlying neurochemical processes mediating behavior. In investigating a particular neural system or a certa ...

Few brain areas have received as much attention over the past quarter of a century as the basal ganglia, and to the clinician there is a singular reason for such an intense research focus. The basal ganglia are often sites of major pathology in neurological movement disorders and thus represent those b ...

The central nervous system (CNS) is a major focus for investigations of the causes of behavior. In this context, causes may be changes in brain neuronal activity that correlate with a behavior or the underlying neuronal mechanisms resulting in the appearance of behavior. How are the neurobiolo ...