神经生物学

Optical imaging is developing towards the method of choice for monitoring the activities of large numbers of cells in the cortex of living rodents. During the last decade this approach was fueled by methodological progress in both optical instrumentation and fluorescent indicators of n ...

The optical properties of neural tissues play critical roles in all types of optical imaging methods. The wavelength-dependent absorption and scattering properties of tissue influence imaging resolution, penetration depth, and often provide sources of contrast. Therefore, qu ...

In this chapter I will give a brief general introduction to optical imaging and then discuss in more detail some of the methods specifically used for imaging cortical dynamics today. Absorption and fluorescence microscopy can be used to form direct, diffraction-limited images but standa ...

When mammals such as mice, cats, monkeys, or humans act in the world, they continually make behaviorally relevant decisions based on perceived sensory information and memorized experiences and they constantly adapt to outside challenges through learning. These cognitive capabil ...

Hallucinogenic activity, by definition, can be measured only in human subjects. Nevertheless, there may be an animal counterpart, or a behavioral or physiological response that parallels hallucinogenic activity/potency in humans and will be a useful predictor of hallucinogenic p ...

For 50 years, since the original work by (1940), rats have been used in experiments to model human alcohol abuse. The use of a nonhuman species, such as the rat, to model a behavior that seems to be inherently human has been justified in terms of the relatively economical and convenient provision of large, gen ...

Drug tolerance can be broadly defined as a reduction in the effects of a drug as a consequence of repeated exposure to that drug. This is shown as a shift to the right of the dose-response curve (DRC) of a drug, meaning that a higher dose of the drug is required to produce the same degree of effect in a tolerant individual as ...

With the pioneering work of Weeks (1961,1962) and others (Thompson and Schuster, 1964; Collins and Weeks, 1965; Deneau et al., 1969; Yanagita and Takahashi, 1973), which showed that laboratory animals would voluntarily ingest psychoactive drugs, an enormous field of research has developed ...

In the late 1950s, researchers at Hoffmann-La Roche discovered that benzodiazepines were able to cause changes in animal behavior that resembled those caused by barbiturates and meprobamate. Shortly thereafter, chlordiazepoxide was introduced ino clinical practice as an anxio ...

The present chapter deals with a model of opiate abstinence in which the primary event is motivation, as indexed by the ability of withdrawal to produce avoidance behavior. The propensity of rodents to learn rapidly to avoid novel flavors paired with illness (Garcia et al., 1974; Rozin and Kalat, 197 ...

An obvious preliminary to the discussion of models of “drug addiction” is to consider what we mean by that term. Over the past several decades, a number of definitions of drug addiction have been used. Although some of the historically earliest definitions of addiction or drug dependence relied in p ...

Caffeine is a widely used compound found both in drug preparations and in commonly consumed foods and beverages. Most human exposure occurs primarily through consumption of caffeinated beverages (e.g., coffee, tea, and soft drinks) such that, across all age groups, the average daily dose of ca ...

The use of genetically specified animals to address fundamental questions in neuroscience continues to grow apace. In the early 1950s, (Mardones 1951) reported the development by selective breeding of strains of rats preferring and not preferring to drink alcohol. (McClearn and Rodge ...

The barbiturates consist of a pyrimidine nucleus derived from the condensation of malonic acid and urea. Pharmacologically, barbituric acid per se does not have central nervous system (CNS) depressant action. The CNS action is produced only after the appropriate alkyl or aryl groups are su ...

Ethanol abuse is usually understood to include heavy ethanol use as well as the development of medical, legal, social, and/ or family problems from drinking. The various problems associated with the excessive use of alcoholic beverages have made ethanol abuse and alcoholism a dominant medi ...

The purpose of the present chapter is not to review all drug-induced animal models of psychiatric and neurological diseases, but to discuss a number of models that highlight their usefulness and limitations. I have made my choice of models to discuss partly on the basis of their role (putative or act ...

During the last 15 years, the methods proposed to study the regulation of cholinergic transmission in vivo have required the labeling of the acetylcholine (ACh) and choline stored in neurons by injecting labeled precursors of ACh, and by measuring simultaneously the changes with time in the s ...

The indoleamme serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) was described in the central nervous system (CNS) more than 30 years ago (Amin et al., 1954; Bogdanski et al., 1956; De Robertis, 1964; Twarog and Page, 1953; Zieher and De Robertis, 1963) based on biochemical determinations of this amine in diffe ...

Acetylcholine (ACh) is known to be a neurotransmitter in the nervous systems of vertebrates and invertebrates. The fact that numerous plants, animals, and bacteria have evolved toxins that selectively interfere with cholinergic transmission is an indication of the relative import ...

Most studies concerning the mechanism of action of psychotropic drugs are based on pharmacological interactions. A drug known to block, for instance, the dopaminegic system is utilized to establish whether another drug exerts its pharmacological effects via that monoammergic sys ...