Wright State University

Here, we describe a rapid reliable and simple procedure to determine the lowest temperature at which rats or mice show nocifensive behavior, i.e. the thermal nociceptive threshold (TNT). This method applies a slowly increasing thermal stimulus allowing precise and reproducible estimation of TNTs with minimum, if any, stress to the animals.

Tangential flow ultrafiltration (TFU) is a recirculation method used for the weight-based separation of biosamples. TFU was adapted to size-select (1-20 nm diameter) and highly concentrate a large volume of polydisperse silver nanoparticles (4 L of 15.2 μg ml^-1 down to 4 ml of 8,539.9 μg ml^-1) with minimal aggregation.

Impairment in olfactory function is a common feature in many neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson, Alzheimer, and Huntington diseases. In the present article, we describe a set of tests for assessing olfaction discrimination and detection in mice that can be used to measure olfactory abilities in mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases.

T-lymphocyte mitogenesis is accompanied by blastogenic transformation, whereupon the cell volume enlarges before cell division. Here, we describe a method to quantify blastogenesis in T lymphocytes using an automated cell counter with the capability of measuring cell diameters.

The ability to induce and/or control neural plasticity may be critical in future treatments for neurologic disorders and the recovery from brain injury. In this paper, we present a protocol on the use of neurofeedback training with functional magnetic resonance imaging to modulate human brain function.

This paper introduces a method for repeated measurements of ventilation and respiratory muscle activity in a freely behaving amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) mouse model throughout disease progression with whole-body plethysmography and electromyography via an implanted telemetry device.

The protocol described in this paper uses the mouse levator auris longus (LAL) muscle to record spontaneous and nerve-evoked postsynaptic potentials (current-clamp) and currents (voltage-clamp) at the neuromuscular junction. Use of this technique can provide key insights into mechanisms of synaptic transmission under normal and disease conditions.

This article presents a mating-based method to facilitate overexpression screening in budding yeast using an arrayed plasmid library.

Proliferation is a critical part of cellular function, and a common readout used to assess potential toxicity of new drugs. Measuring proliferation is, therefore, a frequently used assay in cell biology. Here we present a simple, versatile method of measuring proliferation that can be used in adherent and non-adherent cells.

We present a protocol for the isolation, culture, and adipogenic induction of neural crest derived adipose-derived stem cells (NCADSCs) from the periaortic adipose tissue of Wnt-1 Cre^+/-;Rosa26^RFP/+ mice. The NCADSCs can be an easily accessible source of ADSCs for modeling adipogenesis or lipogenesis in vitro.

This protocol demonstrates how to measure resting state functional connectivity in the human prefrontal cortex using a custom-made diffuse correlation spectroscopy instrument. The report also discuss practical aspects of the experiment as well as detailed steps for analyzing the data.

The rat orthotopic renal transplantation model contributes to investigating the mechanism of renal allograft rejection. The current model increases the recipients' survival without interference with blood supply and venous reflux of the lower body using an end-to-end anastomosis of kidney implantation and an end-to-side "tunnel" method of ureter-bladder anastomosis.

In the present protocol, a mouse heart transplantation model is used for investigating the mechanism of cardiac allograft rejection. In this heterotopic heart transplantation model, operation efficiency is improved, and the survival of cardiac grafts is ensured by a cervical end-to-end anastomosis of heart implantation using a modified Cuff technique.

The present protocol describes the emergency management of microscopic replantation of penile glans amputation due to circumcision.

Here, we developed a human aorta smooth muscle cell organ-on-a-chip model to replicate the in vivo biomechanical strain of smooth muscle cells in the human aortic wall.