神经生物学

Various neurodegenerative diseases are associated with aberrant gene expression. We recently identified a novel class of pimelic o-aminobenzamide histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors that show promise as therapeutics in the neurodegenerative diseases Friedreich’s a ...

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurological disorder caused by progressive degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal area of the brain. The decrease in dopamine (DA) neurotransmitter levels in the striatum and substantia nigra pars compacta is a neurochemistry hall ...

Emerging evidence suggests that synaptic dysfunction occurs prior to neuronal loss in neurodegenerative diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Therefore, monitoring synaptic activity during early stages of neurodegeneration may provide valuable infor ...

Calcium is a ubiquitous intracellular messenger that has important functions in normal neuronal function. The pathology of Alzheimer’s disease has been shown to alter calcium homeostasis in neurons and astrocytes. Several calcium dye indicators are available to measure intrace ...

Optical imaging is a valuable tool for investigating alterations in membrane turnover and vesicle trafficking. Established techniques can easily be adapted to study the mechanisms of synaptic dysfunction in models of neuropsychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative dise ...

The voltage-gated sodium channel (Nav1) plays an important role in initiating and propagating action potentials in neuronal cells. We and others have recently found that the Alzheimer’s disease-related secretases BACE1 and presenilin (PS)/γ-secretase regulate Nav1 function by c ...

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common neurodegenerative disease, is characterized by a progressive loss of synapses and accumulation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptides in the brain. Previous studies demonstrated that acute increase in synaptic activity in cultured hippocampal slic ...

Removal of the olfactory bulbs from the rodent induces neuronal reorganisation and the expression of behavioural, neurochemical, neuroendocrine and immune changes that resemble those observed in major depressive disorder. As such this model is widely used to examine the neurobio ...

Multiple biological processes are implicated in the neurobiology of depression based primarily on the characterization of antidepressant efficacy in na�ve rodents rather than on models that recapitulate the protracted feelings of anhedonia and helplessness that typify dep ...

This chapter outlines the experimental methods for inducing Depression-like behavior in mice by separating group-housed mice to individual housing. This is a model of loneliness in mice. Loneliness-induced depression is measured using the forced swim test (FST) and tail suspension t ...

Among all mammalian species, pups are the most highly dependent on their mothers not only for nutrition but also for physical interaction. Therefore, disruption of the mother–pup interaction changes the physiology and behavior of pups. We reviewed the experimental procedure of early we ...

The assessment of variations in maternal behavior in laboratory rodents is challenging yet may provide an essential tool for understanding the mechanisms linking early life experiences to individual differences in stress responsivity and behavioral indices of depression and a ...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is clinically defined by exposure to a significantly threatening and/or horrifying event and the presence of a certain number of symptoms from each of three symptom clusters at least one month after the event. The procedures involved in defining clin ...

A primary symptom in the diagnosis of PTSD is the inability to control fear. Therefore, the study of fear and its inhibition are essential in understanding the disorder. This chapter will provide detailed protocols for fear conditioning and extinction which can be used as a model to further under ...

Effects of compounds on suppressed or punished responding are often used to predict anxiolytic efficacy in humans. The use of mice in these tests has many advantages including the ability to evaluate transgenic animals. In contrast to steady state baselines that can take months to establish, ...

Differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate (DRL) is an operant conditioning schedule that requires behavioral inhibition for a given length of time, known as the interresponse time (IRT), in order to receive reinforcement. For rodents under a DRL 36 or 72-s schedule, antidepressant tr ...

Since the discovery of the intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) procedure in the 1950s, studies using this method have greatly expanded our knowledge of the neurobiology of motivation and reward. ICSS is an operant behavioral procedure in which laboratory rodents prepared with stim ...

Understanding behavioral regulation can further progress by developing new approaches that allow refinement of behavioral phenotypes. The current availability of several thousand different mutant mice and of human candidate genes for emotional (affective) disorders cha ...

Abnormal reward-seeking behavior is a key feature in several psychiatric and neuroscience diseases. Though there are numerous paradigms for measuring reward-seeking behavior in rodents, each has limitations that affect the ability of the researcher to make conclusions on the rewa ...

Impulsive behaviour is a fundamental component of numerous psychiatric illnesses including mood disorders. In order to measure “impulsivity” and understand the complex neurological underpinnings of this behavioural construct, it is beneficial to employ the use of mouse models. ...