神经生物学

Three-dimensional reconstruction is a method of qualifying the behavioral activity of several animals including mice, rats, and zebrafish. This method allows for measuring behavioral endpoint data on two types of tracking planes (temporal and spatial). Temporal tracking measur ...

The development of reliable pharmacological screening assays is an important task. However, it is based upon the ability of animal models, such as the zebrafish, to demonstrate predictive validity for a specific set of drug classes. A popular assay used for this purpose is the novel tank diving pa ...

Zebrafish behavioral phenotypes are often evaluated in response to pharmacological modulation by various psychotropic drugs. An important step in this process is the method of drug administration. While the most popular drug administration technique in zebrafish research is by i ...

The light/dark box test, traditionally used to quantify rodent anxiety-like behavior, has recently been applied to the adult zebrafish (Danio rerio). Utilizing the fish’s scototaxis (aversion to bright areas and natural preference for the dark), this paradigm can be used to assess levels of ...

Various novelty-based assays used to quantify zebrafish (Danio rerio) behavior show a striking similarity to behavioral responses in rodents. Exposed to the open field test, zebrafish establish overt homebases demonstrating clear preference for a particular area of the tank. This b ...

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly becoming a popular model species in stress and neuroscience research. Their behavior, robustly affected by environmental and pharmacological manipulations, can be paralleled by physiological (endocrine) analysis. Zebrafish have a hypo ...

Adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) are territorial, show aggressive behavior, and establish dominant-subordinate hierarchies. Here, a protocol for a standard opponent setup is described, which enables the identification, characterization, and quantification of agonistic ac ...

Several methods are available for the quantification of neurotrophin mRNA levels. This chapter describes the RNAse protection assay (RPA) first publishcd by Zinn and co-workers (1) and developed further by Melton and co-workers (2). In this method, a radioactively labeled antisense RNA p ...

Neurotrophin mRNAs are expressed at a wide variety of levels in many types of neurons and nonneuronal cells both within the central and peripheral nervous systems as well as in cells unrelated to neuronal function (1–6). However, in mature animals, most tissues synthesize neurotrophin mRNAs ...

In situ hybridization, a unique method for evaluating gene expression, allows nucleic acid sequences to be detected in morphologically preserved chromosomes, intact cells, and tissue sections. The localized sequences within the cells can be viewed in relation to the morphological f ...

The ability to introduce genes of neurotrophic factors into eukaryotic cells provides a novel way to study neurobiological processes in vitro and in vivo (1–6). To study the functional role of the growth factors in vivo, genetically modified cells expressing neurotrophin have been grafted ...

Investigation into the nature and mechanism of action of neurotrophins dates back to the description of a “nerve growth factor” activity by Levi-Montalcini (described inrefs. 1 and 2) and has progressed to include a family of factors, several of which have been assessed in Federal Drug Adminis ...

The development and analysis of transgenic mice that overexpress or misexpress neurotrophins or their receptors has led to a number of fundamental insights into the mechanisms whereby this family of growth factors exerts its biological effects in vivo (1–5). These transgenic mice were g ...

The ability to manipulate the mouse genome has provided extremely useful model systems for studying the underlying molecular mechanisms of neurotrophin peptide action in mammalian development and adult systems. One way to use transgenics is to overexpress neurotrophins in neuro ...

The development of a simple and “gentle” technique for the radio-iodination of proteins with lactoperoxidase (1) and subsequent modifications of this technique (2–6) have made it possible to introduce labeled neurotrophins as sensitive tracers into living organisms and to determi ...

Neurotrophic factors play an essential role in the growth, survival, and differentiation of neurons in the nervous system. Several well-characterized neurotrophic factors, such as nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), neurotrophin-3 (NT-3), NT-4 ...

Selective destruction of neurons based on the use of targeted toxins has proven successful for several types of neurons (1). This chapter will describe the use of an immunotoxin to selectively destroy rat neurons that express the low-affinity neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) (2). This immun ...

Duplex formation between an oligonucleotide and a strand of mRNA can effectively inhibit the expression of a specific gene via interfering with the cellular protein synthesis process. The antisense technology (1) is regarded as a powerful tool in molecular biology. Advances in the field h ...

In order to look at the retrograde transport of neurotrophic factors from the target tissue to the innervating cell body, the neurotrophin needs to be labeled to a high specific activity. This chapter outlines methods used to bioassay the labeled neurotrophins and the advantages and disadva ...

In recent years, we have witnessed an explosion in the number of techniques available for selectively perturbing the genes and molecules that regulate tissue growth and maintenance. From drugs and neutralizing antibodies, we have progressed to gene deletion, “dominant negative,” ant ...