I need to know if some drugs induce neuronal plasticity. What is the best rat or mouse? Embryo or day zero pups? Cortical or hippocampal? Any other suggestions?
Thanks
Hi .Iam working on mechanism of memory formation and i use rat for my research and recommended for you that use hippocamp for neuronal plasticity.
It depends a lot of what sort of system and tools you have available and what type of questions your asking. The classic way to do this is to use an ex vivo hippocampal LTP preparation from either rat or mouse (mouse being less expensive, rat giving a bigger preparation to work with). If you're looking to work in cell culture, then using primary neurons derived from rat or mouse can work (e.g., see things like chem-induced LTP in primary cultures: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11182095). But to actually demonstrate plasticity, you will need to do electrophysiology in whatever system you're working with.
As there is much more availability of transgenic mice than rats, mice can be preferable in order to take advantage of the many lines available.
I've always used day zero mouse pups without any issues in deriving primary neurons. I prefer this method as it spares the life of the dam, which is particularly useful when using limited transgenic animals. But some people use embryonic and claim that they get better survival. I would suggest using primary neurons at least about 10-12 days in vitro (DIV) to ensure that they have formed numerous synapses etc.
As for hippocampus versus cortex, most folks would probably suggest hippocampal neurons since a lot of learning and memory work focuses on this region. However, if you require larger numbers of cells because you plan on doing biochemistry or other techniques that require a lot of material, it may be worth exploring primary neurons derived from cortex as well. I don't think anyone has attempted to characterize whether or not there are many differences between primary hippocampal and cortical neurons, but could be wrong.
Hope that helps a bit!
It depends highly on the type and quality of your question and also the available facility in your lab. Money has the most important role in this respect.
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