Animal and Neurobehavior Core

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

CORE D SUMMARY The Animal Model and Behavior Core D will be a shared central resource of the Parkinson's Disease Research Center servicing Projects 1, 2, and 3 and will play a central role in our investigations in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. Because the studies proposed will utilize multiple lines of transgenic mice, knockout mice, and knockin mice, as well as striatal ?-synuclein (?-syn) preformed fibrils (PFF) and the gut-brain ?-syn PFF models by project 1, 2, and 3, it will be important to maintain a central breeding facility where numbers of mice required for the proposed studies will be generated and provided to each project in a timely manner. Further, efficiency associated with the maintenance of mice within a single core will significantly reduce the costs associated with the mouse studies and the provision of striatal and the gut-brain ?-syn PFF models within a single core will significantly increase the replicability of these models. Moreover, the core will establish C57BL/6 congenic lines of the transgenic and gene-targeted mice. Congenic mice will be a valuable resource for the phenotypic characterization of the transgenic and gene-targeted mice. In addition, the core will provide all mouse neur0bebavioral analysis and establish suitable methods for data acquisition and analysis. This approach has been successfully used over prior funding cycles of the Center (1999-2014).