Cellular and Molecular Research Techniques in Neuroscience

Rhodes College, Memphis TN

Investigators

Abstract

Biological Sciences (61) As part of the college's plans to enhance the research experience in the natural sciences for our undergraduate students, we are expanding the educational opportunities for students interested in neuroscience. This project is establishing a senior level research course entitled "Molecular and Cellular Research in Neuroscience." For students interested in molecular and cellular neuroscience, this course represents the culminating experience of a new neuroscience major that is to be developed and offered at Rhodes. This new course provides students with more current state-of-the-art research opportunities and experiences, and the new neuroscience major program will stand out as a unique curriculum in the Mid-South region for new undergraduate students of neuroscience. This new research course follows an already successful research-based neuroscience course at Rhodes that employs the more traditional research techniques of cell culture and intracellular and extracellular microelectrode recordings. The new course is based around four fundamental research experiences that have already been developed and published in the neuroscience lab manual "Discovering Neurons: The Experimental Basis of Neuroscience" (Paul et al., 1997). The first laboratory focuses on neurons in development, and involves the measuring of newly expressed ion channel currents in wild type and transfected pheochromo- cytoma (PC12) and COS- 7 cells using whole cell voltage clamp technology. The second laboratory focuses on neurons in communication, and involves the identification of multiple neurotransmitter receptor sites in leech ganglia with dual in situ immunocytochemical labeling techniques. The next laboratory involves neurons forming connections, and incorporates techniques of tract tracing dye injection in the living brain as a method to learn about the afferent and efferent projections in the mammalian cerebrum. The last laboratory is centered on neurons and higher order cognition. In this lab, students research the cellular mechanisms of the synaptic plasticity long- term potentiation by studying synaptic communication in mammalian brain (hippocampal) slices. In this way, students learn how cellular phenomena can result in higher order cognitive process such as learning and memory. Each of the four laboratory experiences offer ample opportunity for further research that can be continued as individually designed independent research experiences.