PSYCH261 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Anterograde Tracing, Pseudorabies
29 Apr 2019
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All tracing requires some sort of histological method to visualize the pathways after sacrificing the animal: not available for studying human brains (some people think it"s bad to kill people for science) Studying the structure of the living human brain: Excitotoxic lesion; uses excitatory amino acid such as kainic acid. Infusion of local anesthetic or drug that produces local neural inhibition. Perfuse brain; fix brain; slice brain; stain sections. Place electrode or cannula in specific region within the brain. Destroys all brain tissue near tip of electrode. Destroys only cell bodies near the tip of cannula; spares axons passing through the region. Temporarily inactivates specific brain region; animal can serve as its own control. Destroys neurons that contain the antibody; produced very precise brain lesions. Identify axons leaving a particular region and the terminal buttons of these axons. Identify the location of neurons whose axons terminate in a particular region. Identify chain of neurons that are interconnected synaptically.
