{"title":"Nitric oxide as a putative retinal axon pathfinding and target recognition cue in Xenopus laevis.","authors":"Sara Berman, Andrea Morris","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Nitric oxide (NO) is an atypical neurotransmitter synthesized by the enzyme nitric oxide synthase (NOS) during many stages of the Xenopus laevis life cycle. This research investigates whether the gas NO is involved in axon guidance, the neurodevelopmental process in which axons travel through the brain to their appropriate target locations to form functional neural circuitry. Through immunocytochemistry and direct labeling of the NO gas with a fluorescent dye, we have found that NOS expression corresponds spatiotemporally with the beginning of retinal axon innervation of the optic tectum in X. laevis. Our function-blocking studies in which NO is chemically inhibited suggest that NO may be necessary for correct pathfinding and targeting, evidenced by qualitative widening of the optic tract and aberrant target innervation.</p>","PeriodicalId":30053,"journal":{"name":"Impulse The Premier Undergraduate Neuroscience Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3155770/pdf/nihms310731.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"29938218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Varied Uses of Conditioned Place Preference in Behavioral Neuroscience Research: An Investigation of Alcohol Administration in Model Organisms.","authors":"Brandon Lucke-Wold","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Place conditioning procedures have been used to study human addiction to alcohol for the past several years. This experimental resource has been utilized successfully due to the fact that investigators can carefully manipulate the experimental design in order to explore specific hypotheses. Only three choices exist regarding animal response to place conditioning: aversion, preference, or no change. This review provides an in-depth analysis of five variables commonly adjusted or changed in place conditioning experiments with ethanol. These include: apparatus design, administration methods, choice of model organism, age of model organism, and model paradigms. It is suggested that the two-chamber design, the intragastric administration, the mouse model, the adolescent age group, and the pre-exposure to stress paradigm are the best current options available in place conditioning experiments with ethanol. The basis for evaluation used throughout this review is that investigators should adjust the variables employed in place conditioning experiments in a manner that most accurately represents and models complex human addiction to alcohol.</p>","PeriodicalId":30053,"journal":{"name":"Impulse The Premier Undergraduate Neuroscience Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4896635/pdf/nihms789402.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"34456918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}