Brain - Science topic

When people feel emotional pain, the same areas of the brain get activated as when people feel physical pain: the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. In one study, these regions were activated when people experienced an experimental social rejection from peers.

It could be considered that when we accept there is pain and its not going to go away (eg. Chronic pain/loosing a person) could help managing it, just like when we consider that a person is dead who is close to your heart, then after some time people accept it and move on, its not that pain is not there but they manage to cope with it. Just like that if a person with chronic pain which is not going away with treatment (any kind), if accepts that its going to remain and have to manage it, then brain starts masking its effects by reducing the sensation in the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex. And that might help patients having better life!

Imaginations or memories look fainter than first-hand experience (or hallucinations): Can this fainter "look" and its comparison with the solid look of first-hand experience (and hallucinations) give us any info about qualia or phenomenal consciousness? If so, what? and How?

For starters, it can tell me that qualia may depend on neural activity because the fainter look of memories or imaginations correlates with a fainter activation of responsible brain areas.

I want to claim in an article that our Self is a simple and unstable mental representation and not something transcending the neural computation (e.g. a Soul) as it can appear to us.

What are the best arguments and scientific proofs in support to this claim?

For example: what are the best studies showing that:

- The self is not unique and a single brain can produce multiple Selfs?

> schizophrenic patients experience multiple Selfs (we all have multiple Selfs but in these patients this appears more clearly).

> split brain patients can develop the perception of different Selfs in the two hemispheres (Graziano)

- The agency of the self is an illusion?

> For example, we may be induced to make a decision based on subliminal cues but then we would believe that the decision was made independently by the Self. Anything showing that what appear as a deliberated decision of the Self is not.

- Buddhist monks can eliminate the internal narrative of the Self through meditation and experience it as a flow of mental representations (more direct perception of the Mind).

- Anything similar to the Rubber hand illusion.

Many thanks for your help! :)

What are the best, most effective for our brain ways to learn a new language, especially a language from a different language group than our native language? What are the best ways of improving the learning process and make our brains actually learn something long-term?

Neural networks show a variety of "edge of chaos" dynamics when simulated, like SOC avalanches (see Hochstetter et al., 2021, Nature Communications). Yet this is not the dynamics of the conscious process.

See

This is because conscious processes are labile but not destructive/ eliminative. An intermittency is a form of chaos. It is not SOC avalanches. Such behavior produces intermittent dynamics and yet no fractality, and without avalanches. This supports our idea that conscious processes are not a neural network phenomenon. Intermittency is a different mode of interaction stemming from multiscalar effects, not network behavior.

In the above paper, we have used quantum analogs (approximate the quantum realm through quantum statistical thermodynamics leading to statistical thermodynamics, without the need for classical analogs or full QM approaches, which results in statistical “washout”) to lay the groundwork for active consciousness in the brain of biological organisms. Analogical reasoning helps produce productive models of biological phenomena, like consciousness.

SOC-self-organizing criticality.

Observing our living environment learns that some of the objects in the universe behave in chaos, while other objects apparently behave according to well-established rules. Often the signal-to-noise ratio is more than ten orders of magnitude. This mixture confuses many scientists. Could it be that in principle everything is well-ordered?

Hello guys,

I am performing in IHC and I'm perfusing my mice and fixating them to extract the brain.

I'm new to this and I have performed some perfusions recently but I don't like the morphology I see under the microscope!

Now, we do have only 37% paraformaldehyde stock solution (Roth) and after I researched on the internet I found out that 10% formalin is equal to 4% PFA. My colleague always prepared 4%PFA from the 37% PFA but I suspected that this is correct and I started to prepare 10%. Could that be the reason for the bad morphology? Does it need optimization?

Here I state the steps I do for perfusion and fixation perhaps something here is not correct: I first perfuse the mouse with warm (37C) PBS. After that I perfusion it with cold 10% Formalin. I then post fixate for 24-48 hours in 10% Formalin.

Thanks for your answers and suggestions is advance!

Cheers.

Hi all,

I need to test strains of L. monocytogenes for their potential lactic acid resistance. The idea is to introduce lactic acid at different concentrations of its undissociated form in a culture medium (e.g. Brain heart infusion), keeping the pH around 6-7, and test my strains for growth. Any suggestions on how to calculate it or how to measure it?

Thanks in advance

The power spectral density of EEG is inversely correlated with brain activity, so lower power spectral density reflects stronger activity. Is this view correct? Applicable to all waves such as alpha, beta, theta, etc.?

marker for heart failure ,Why Brain (the cause from name Brain)?

(Dogmas &/or less intellectual activities = less mind function)

The involuntary or normal breathing is controlled by respiratory centres in the pons and medulla oblongata. There are enough references for this. However, when we consciously control the breathing rate and depth, obviously the control needs to come from higher centres in the brain. Can someone suggest good reference material to know the latest knowledge in this domain of conscious, voluntary control of breathing, including breath hold?

Hi,

I have EEG signals and it has a few channels. Now, I want to plot the data in order to get the Brain Activity Mapping. It will be very helpful if anyone can give some idea to do it.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

I am currently researching an article about rabies for possible publication in a medical laboratory journal. I understand that, as the rabies virus travels along the nervous system from the site of inoculation as it makes its way to the brain, it largely avoids the body's immune system. Nevertheless, it is clear that prophylactic rabies vaccine as well as post-exposure vaccine and immune globulin can successfully protect an individual against developing rabies. If the rabies virus is in effect shielded from the immune system because it's within the CNS, what is the actual process by which rabies vaccines help the immune system attack the virus? Is there a particular class of cells responsible for neutralizing the virus? At what point do circulating immune cells have contact with the CNS and thus the virus? Thank you. John

Procrastination is the deferral or postponement of an action. Learning disabilities interfere with the brain's ability to receive, process, store, respond and communicate information.

I had a curious question - do you know if there's any papers on if an established couple (say 1 year dating for simplicity/east example) if they engage in intimate activities over web cam (like Skype) versus in person relations, how different are the brain reactions? I'm curious because really the only thing missing is the smell and other strictly only in person things you can do

I was trying to culture glial cell from embryonic day 17th. But, cells were not survived. I provided the DMEM+10% FBS and glutamax. Even though the cell are not differentiating into glial cells. whenever I use same cell to grow neurons, cells are growing as neuron in neurobasal medium. So, what am I supposed to do? please suggest me steps that I could improve my protocol.

Thanks in advance.

Hi everybody,

I have two experimental groups (vehicle- vs drug-treated) and two time points. I plotted correlated activity of different brain regions in each group, at each time point. Now, I would like to determine whether the correlated brain activity statistically differs between the two groups and two time points (so 2x2 design, but no matching or pairing across time). So far, I could not find a method to compare the strength of the correlations between two (or more) groups. Does anyone have experience in this?

Many thanks!

Best, Kübra

Only regions of innervation are mentioned for each neuron. Yet, in the paper "A connectome and analysis of the adult Drosophila central brain: https://elifesciences.org/articles/57443" they have plotted the number of neuron types per region. I am missing something in my understanding of the study. Any help would be much appreciated.

I have mice brain alices with FG staining without the use of anti-FG antibody. I have some very brightly stained neurons while quite a few somewhat faded cells in the background.

Should i count only the brightly stained neurons only or also the ones which show any weak signal. I worry I will have lots of false positives then.

This is an experiment you can try at home. Take a simple magnetic compass and sitting on a swivel chair align yourself facing due north. Then relax and focus your attention on the sensations of your scalp. Gently swivel between north west and north east passing through magnetic north.

Can you feel a sensation which changes depending on your orientation relative to the north direction? It is very subtle and I can't be sure so I would like other people to try the experiment.

It would be a good experiment to try in a school class to see if children have a more pronounced sense of the direction of the magnetic field. If it is true that humans can sense the magnetic direction then this might explain how birds sense magnetic north for navigation.

Richard

If the nanoparticles are targeted to brain for treatment of brain related disorders is there necessity of using any polymers if so what type of polymers are especially effective

Good afternoon,

The link provided in the article to download the atlas no longeer works. Do you kown if an other way exists to download it?

Thank you for your help!

I have been culturing human astrocytes derived from brain samples. Do not have any problem growing them on T25, T75, and multi-well plates (Poly D lysine coated). But, when I grow them on coverslips coated with PDL, astrocytes detach and I am barely left with any cells on the coverslips. This happened many times despite troubleshooting. Astrocytes adhere very nicely on coverslips coated with PDL, but they detach easily after PFA fixation and washes with PBS. All the steps have been performed very gently to avoid cell detachment. But nothing worked. So, I seeded human astrocytes directly on the chambered slides (without PDL coating), and I faced the same problem. I couldn't figure out where the problem is. I checked many papers that mentioned growing primary mouse and human astrocytes on PDL-coated coverslips.

I request experts who worked on human astrocytes to kindly suggest what I should do.

Dear colleagues,

Would you be so kind to advise me where the simultaneous raw data of the brain temperature and EEG time series can be available for public access? I suppose these data are possible mainly to mice or rats.

How could this happen?

I am looking at local field potentials and brain oscillations in vitro and am wondering if the power spectral analysis can be performed in clampfit. Most manuscripts report using a custom script in Matlab concurrent with pClamp softwares. I am curious if all analysis can be performed in Clampfit.

Data need the transformation first. I do not know if this can be done.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What protocol is best for determining the protein expression level in the brain using quantitative RT-PCR?

Brain tissue preservation suitable for the protocol and how to analyse

I would be grateful for the help, as I am unable to identify these networks myself.

The increased central venous pressures might even be more important than reduction or augmentation in the systemic arterial blood pressures when it comes to the possible injuries to the brain tissue and brain circulation; because, if there is an autoregulation to face the variations in systemic blood pressures, none any venous auto-regulation is known; yet, investigated.

I am seeking to discover the acute effects of increasing to central venous pressures on the brain tissue and the brain circulation; as well, the range of deleterious increasing in the central venous pressures.

Many thanks for your enlightening.

I need to stain the hippocampus of mice brain with KI antibody. I tried different dilution of AB and retrieval with EDTA and citrate. But i still get week positive result. What can i change to improve the result??

Hello everyone,

I am planning to design a model that can predict individuals with high or low psychosis-proneness by looking at the brain connectivity measures in 114 regions, age, gender, IQ, SES, polygenic risk score for psychosis (PRS), and environmental risk score for psychosis (ERS). In this way, I am planning to investigate the brain regions that serve to distinguish high and low psychosis-proneness by using machine learning. However, my sample includes healthy twin and sibling data; hence, my data is not independent. I could group the sample into high and low psychosis-proneness based on weighted positive symptom severity.

Therefore, I would like to ask whether there are any codes or approaches that you can share with me.

My data looks like the image I shared (I did not add the PRS since I do not have the information yet).

Thank you for your help!

Is there neural data which support this claim?

It goes without saying that if someone has a blood clot in their brain, it should be cleared as soon as possible. An experimental new transducer could help, as it uses swirling waves of ultrasound to break up blood clots much faster than existing methods.

Developed by scientists at North Carolina State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, the device is designed specifically for use on what is known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) clots. These form in veins that ordinarily allow blood to drain from the brain. When those veins are blocked, blood pressure in the brain increases, so potentially lethal or disabling bleeding may occur.

I'm wondering if, besides TMS-EEG, exist some others techniques or methods that allow to estimate this timing.

We have some sections of spinal cord from some non-human primates that my lab is trying to section. For our brain sections, we use a microtome and frozen tissue and cut 40um thick sections, not a cryostat and we are looking to do the same for the spinal cord but our first attempt was not successful. Has anyone done this successfully? We would like to avoid using a cryostat if need be as our lab prefers to have free-floating sections of tissue to work with.

Thanks!

Can electrochemically excited neurons in the brain (1) correspond to pixels (picture elements) (2) in a video display? To use the example of a CRT (cathode-ray tube), (3) impulses from nerves connected to the eyes, ears, etc. would convey information from the outside world to the brain's neurons - just as the CRT's electron beam lights up the pixels on a video screen. The bright pixels form the picture we see when watching TV and so on.

When sufficiently large numbers of neurons are activated by neural impulses, they could form an image corresponding to the input from the eyes, ears, brain's frontal lobes, etc. Depending on which parts of the brain are stimulated, the image could represent a memory of the past or an image, sound etc. in the present's exterior, or an idea concerning what will happen in the future. This might be what occurs in an animal which does not use English, Chinese, etc. In humans, the words and sentences of a language we grew up with (or learned later) can be used to translate each memory/image/sound/thought.

How can neurons activated by neural impulses form an image corresponding to the input from the eyes, ears, brain's frontal lobes, etc? The images don’t need to be in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. They could be formed by another, invisible type of light. Neurons function electrochemically – so images created by them could be products of electrical frequencies. If Einstein was correct when he published “Do gravitational fields play an essential role in the structure of elementary particles?”, (4) the frequencies might be gravitational ones interacting with electrical or electromagnetic waves to produce the subatomic particles chemicals are made of.

(1) Ornstein, R., Thompson, R.F. and Macaulay, D. – The Amazing Brain – Chatto & Windus / The Hogarth Press, 1985

(2) Crystal, D. (editor) – Penguin Encyclopedia – Penguin Reference Library, 2006 - pixel, p. 1052

(3) Challoner, J. (general editor) – 1001 Inventions That Changed The World – Cassell Illustrated, 2009 - Cathode Ray Tube, p. 410

(4) Einstein, A. - Spielen Gravitationfelder im Aufbau der Elementarteilchen eine Wesentliche Rolle? (Do gravitational fields play an essential role in the structure of elementary particles?) - Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, (Math. Phys.), 349-356, Berlin, 1919

Reserch will include Machine learning, deep learning based custom model.

Suggetion on device with minimal cost for capturing brain signal will help additionaly.

Could schizophrenia be a mental disease where the self would create the mental structure behind the disease?

Researchers tend to point out that many diseases are created by chemical variations in the brain and well that is pretty obvious, but, could the mental structure consciousness vs unconsciousness provoke the illness itself? The chemicals in the brain serves as the infrastructure of the self mental state and it is not enough to know why this unbalances are succeeding by only using a chemical view.

I myself, from an ignorant position believe that, diseases like schizophrenia are self-inflicted.

Many labs I've interacted with protect their CNO solutions from ambient white lights (e.g. those of a wetlab) with opaque paper or aluminum foil. I have not been able to find a publications that has conclusively shown CNO as being sensitive to light; some commercial sites (like hellobio) claim that it is stable in solution in ambient light an air.

Is this a genuine thing, or is it one of those experimental myths that started somewhere and spread? It's not a big hassle to do some procedures in the dark, but brain microinfusions are a bit more difficult that way.

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

I'm using free-floating brain sections in IHC, but am trying to adjust for the addition of the mesh insert. Without it, I'd use 1 mL, but I'm not certain how much solution will be needed to account for the insert. Is 1.5 mL enough? 2 would likely be safe, but I'm trying to conserve antibodies. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Hello, I am currently having trouble figuring out how to do the statistical analysis for my data set. I’m currently using a controlled cortical impact model where I have the sham vs injury, but the hemispheres are also separated into ipsilateral and contralateral (i.e contralateral parietal cortex vs. ipsilateral parietal cortex). When I research other articles who have done similar experiments, it is unclear/varies on how the statistical analysis is done. I Understand I need to seperate both treatment groups into the ipsilateral and contralateral side depending on the brain region I’m looking at, but does that require a one way or two way anova to do this? I have had a suggestion to do a two way anova, but I do not think that ipsilateral vs. contralateral of the same brain region can be considered an independent variable, but have also received criticism to not do one way anova because it amplifies the differences between the two different hemispheres when there is only two groups (sham vs. injured). Any thoughts?

I am interested in a research idea that involves estrogen receptors. I need to see whether estrogen receptors are upregulated in the brain following my manipulation. However, most of the articles measured this via Western Blot. I am wondering if it is also possible to quantify estrogen receptors in the brain by IHC. And if so, what sort of an image should I see if the receptors are unregulated? Should the number of cells that express ERs increase, or should the existing cells that already express ER be more stained? Or, should I see ER staining more densely in the nucleus rather than being scattered in the soma if the receptors are upregulated?

I use a column kit to extract RNA, and my samples are brain and kidney tissue, the brain tissue was homogenized with a syringe and I got results, but for the kidney, I extracted it with a syringe, mortar and homogenizer method, which did not work, please guide me.

I use a column kit to extract RNA, and my samples are brain and kidney tissue, the brain tissue was homogenized with a syringe and I got results, but for the kidney, I extracted it with a syringe, mortar and homogenizer method, which did not work, please guide me.

Can we look at relationship between brain and consciousness similar to relationship between hardware and software?

There conciseness sound more like GUI part of computer software?!

I'm wondering if it is possible to store whole brain and spinal cord tissues (in freezing media or artificial CSF or anything else) FROM OLD MICE and isolate cells for primary culture of cortical/motor neurons and glia. Please let me know what conditions if possible, and the pros/cons. Thanks!!!

i am currently looking at a nanoparticle formulation for drug delivery to the brain. I want to be able to test the formulation and see if it has any in vitro activity as a drug delivery system

I read in papers that the (indirect) conversion of tyrosine to fumarate can take place in cells but I was wondering if this also takes place in the brain, specifically in neurons?

I am looking for experience with beta-adrenergic receptor antibodies. Which worked and which not. Especially in brain tissue. I checked the elder literature but these antibodies are mostly no longer available.

Thanks a lot!

The PARIS kit isolates the RNA and the protein portions of a sample, and there are many studies that have used that protein extraction for western blots. Is it possible to use the protein extraction from rat brain tissue for an ELISA?

Hello everyone,

We are extracting total brain tissues and cutting sections via freezing stage microtome. Total brain tissues are fixed in 20 % paraformaldehyde + sucrose for 48 h and then transferred to %20 PBS sucrose. Until now, we were storing the slices at -20 degree in long term storage buffer. However, after staining some slices we got images with some kind of dirt and disruptions. The protocol for the long term storage buffer doesn't involve any anti-bacterial or anti-fungal but not all sections have this problem so we are suspecting that it is due to the storage time.

I would like to know what are the optimal conditions for storing the brain slices for long term or can we use another solution for long term storage of the sections? And how long can a brain tissue and a brain slice can be stored?

Thank you

I am about to begin transmission electron micrographic studies on the Brain cortex NVU in mice models infused with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Initially, I will investigate to see if there is a loss of the brain endothelial cell glycocalyx and then also study the mural cell pericyte and the neuroglia. It is known that Microglia and Astrocytes are activated by LPS; however, it is not known if there is activation of the brain endothelial cells to result in increased transcytotic vesicles and thus increased brain endothelial cell permeability without affecting the BBB tight and adherens junctions.

I look forward to any and all input from this question. I am hungary to know what you all think regarding this new experiment. I really hope to learn from this question and your answers.

I will begin once the omicron variant settles down as it has been raging here in central US now for over 2 weeks and creating a huge stress on our hospitals and health care providers.

Please feel free to share your opinions and or some of your experimental findings from publications and your knowledge.

Sincerely,

Melvin Hayden

University of Missouri School of Medicine

Columbia, Missouri USA

When imaging methods that can cover the entire cerebral cortex and achieve cellular resolution become available.

What additional information will be available to us more than what local imaging can provide today?

I have tried conducting iba1 and GFAP staining in 40um sliced rat brain sections. The staining seems to work well on the peripheral parts of the brain but not the central. There are the occasional cells that show a strong signal, but the rest of them do not. This leads me to think those peripheral parts which will have had the strongest penetrence of the PFA will be the ones that have fixed the strongest.

I have slices from rats which underwent a very similar protocol but I conducted this months before and the IHC protocol works fine for those ones.

I am not 100% sure that it is under fixation. But I can not think of what else it could be. I believe over fixation show very strong positive staining and noise. Also why would over fixation only show strong signal in the peripheral parts of the tissue.

I enclose a not very good image of this currently. But it highlights my point, the right of the image is the periphery, where there is strong staining. The left is going more medial.

Is there anything that I can do to try to understand what has happened, and what I could do to try to get usable images from this tissue?

We isolated mice brain after perfusion with chilled PBS, followed by fixation in 4%PFA (24hr) and 30% sucrose dehydration until sank to bottom of tube. Later, brain samples were cryo preserved . While sectioning in cryotome at 30um. We observed that in some brain samples, sections are very porous or web like. Is this due to preservation issue or can it be due to treatment conditions.

can i still use these sections for IHC/IF?

Classification of medical images in particular

For almost 100 years, it has been the mantra of biology that brain cells do not regenerate. Modern research proves the opposite: neurogenesis takes place continuously in specific regions of the adult brain.

I found a pre-processed EEG dataset (which is publicly available). But it is missing certain channels (removed due to noise according to the original authors). Now i need to carry out brain region-based spectral analysis on the data, but I am not sure how to proceed.

How can I retrieve the missing channels? (keeping in mind that most interpolation tools require the channels to be atleast present in the data).

Or can I go ahead with spectral analysis without the channels? (note that different channels are missing in different subjects and the number of missing channels can be as high as 50% of the total channels.)

I am new to EEG processing but I have been trying to search for solutions for a very long time now. Couldn't find one yet. Any find of guidance will be highly appreciated.

Merely asking this question is enough to make even the most “enlightened” priests of modern theoretical sciences to reach out for their loaded guns and call for Inquisition, Guillotine etc. But the mighty thinker Emmanuel Kant's honest statement in the Critique of Pure Reason, "I have found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith"; exposes modern theoretical sciences as the conscious and subjective myth-making tool to replace the primitive myths with more credible new ones! This subjective and conscious myth-making efforts at the behest of faith and the ruling idea; is nowhere more insidious and deceptive (and hence more deadly) as in the so-called “objective”, official theoretical physics and cosmology since Isaac Newton!

"Quō Vādis Theoretical Physics and Cosmology? From Newton's Metaphysics to Einstein's Theology!" :

The most fundamental essence of humanity is to strive towards "the freedom of the will", based on real knowledge of the world and of itself– a subjectivity and the dialectical unity of the opposites of the objectivity of blind Nature (and as a part of Nature itself); in this infinite, eternal and ever-changing universe. This essence is an acquired ability that allows man to effectively change the conditions of his physical, mental and social existence based on the positive knowledge of the world and of himself (as a social being); in such a way as to progressively reduce the contradiction between subjective man and objective Nature, between humanity and the world, but never completely eliminating it.

The most decisive factor in the evolution of this subjective “being” came with the bipedal (erect) stature in man, which made his hands free (a giant leap towards freedom) for further subjective acts and developments; that enhanced both his “being” and his “knowing”. The final act through which man forever separated himself from the animal kingdom and towards more freedom; was the mastery over one of the forces of Nature, namely heat (fire). The development of the dexterity and the manipulating skills of the hand necessitated the revolutionary development of the brain and with it, speech. The developed brain gave man enhanced ability for abstraction, reflection, introspection and communication etc. that in a reciprocal way led to the further development of the brain and also gave the hand “the high degree of perfection required to conjure into being the pictures of a Raphael, the statues of a Thorwaldsen, the music of a Paganini”. [“The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man”; F. Engels, 1876]

But this journey towards freedom so far was not a smooth one-way process only. Most of all, new and evolving constrains on knowledge and developments imposed both by Nature and by man himself stood in his way towards freedom. The more damaging ones were the self-made constrains known as the alienations. The alienations are creations of man for his own need of the time, but those creations at a certain stage of their development go out of his control as if an entity coming from outside and like a Frankenstein Monster sets itself to control its creator. Historically; Myths, Religion, Class Division, Capital, State etc., were the most potent alienations that impeded the progress towards knowledge and freedom. In modern times the most dominant alienation is Capital, in its most regressive monopoly-finance form.

I followed the exact protocol for kidney, liver samples and it worked. But it is not working for brain samples. I extracted the histone proteins using pre-lysis, lysis, and balanced buffer from Bio-Rad. Then checked the protein concentration followed by SDS-PAGE (80V for 1.5 hours). Then I did the transfer (0.18A for 1.5 hours) on PVDF. I used H3K9BHB primary antibody (1:1000)dilution and kept in in cooler for 12-16 hours followed by secondary antibody (Anti-goat Rabbit 1:10000 dilution) for 2 hours. I developed the blots using LICOR's fluorescence-based detection.

Dear All,

I want to enquire about the persistence of Scorpion venom in the nervous tissue of albino mice. which medium (mobile & Stationary phase) should I use for the HPLC?

if anyone can please guide me or share a protocol (link), I will be really grateful.

Regards,,

Hello, there are some holes/porous structure on my nissl staining results as shown in the picture below. Does it look like freezing defects or slides over dried? Some advice will be appreciate. The procedure is described below :

The mouse was perfused fixed with pbs and 4% pfa and then head was left in 30% surcose pfa solution (w/v) for very long time( I know this looks weird but previous lab member could get decent Nissl staining results from it). Then the mouse head was frozen in -80 and brain was extracted with ephys probe embedded inside. Afterwards brain was embedded in oct and put in -80 for freezing and preserving. Frozen oct block is frozen sectioned, dried for 12hrs at RT and nissl stained(5min xylene defat, descending alcohol 3min rehydrate, di water 1min, toludine blue 4 min, ascending alcohol for differenti and xylene 30min for clearing.

Thanks

I generated a line of transgenic mice with a deletion of the mu-opioid receptor on ChAT+ cells, as part of a larger study investigating the role of NAc cholinergic interneurons in opioid behaviors. While doing my literature review, I think it's important to talk about potential off-target effects of the transgenic technique (i.e., what if the deletion isn't just affecting MORs on cholinergic interneurons?), however I've struggled to find really any literature showing which brain regions besides the NAc include MOR-expressing, acetylcholine-releasing cells. I realize this is a fairly specific type of neuron, though, and perhaps there just simply isn't much known about this yet. Is anyone familiar with other brain regions where these neurons may be?

It's been couple of days for me to learn this new topic for my research study. I noticed there's a large difference when I study at my lab and food court. In the lab, my labmates will be doing their own research and most of the time, the environment is silent and cold. So, I'm easily get sleepy and hard to focus. However in food court or Cafe, there'll be a lot of people comes in group. Some with their families and some with their colleagues. They form various topic of discussions and making the environment noisier. But this environment is very ideal for me to study and focus on my research topic. I'm very curious on this situation because some of my colleagues prefer a silent and cold place to focus on their study while people like me, we like noisier and ambient place. So my questions is what make us different? Is it due to our personality or the function of our brain or how we live our lives? I know this kind of weird question but if you have reference or opinions, kindly share it here. Thank you!

Hey there, I am analysing the concentrations of various trace metals in the human brain using ICP-MS. I am using a protocol that uses an overnight digestion in 69% nitric acid followed by a 2-hour digestion with 30% hydrogen peroxide added to this. During the latter step, there is bubbling and loss of volume from the microcentrifuge tube. Closing the tube to prevent this is not an option due to the pressure buildup.

The paper I am using ( ), mentions that "This led to an evaporative volume loss of typically 24.9 ± 4.9%, which was corrected for." so correcting for the loss is possible. I need to calculate this volume loss so that I can quantify the concentration of metals in the piece of brain tissue.

How can I go about calculating this? Any help is appreciated! Thank you!

I am looking for a lipid biomarker of BBB leakage. There are recently published blood and brain lipidomics datasets but it is not clear which lipids are exclusive to the blood and if such lipids (in bound or unbound forms) are found in the brain parenchyma, can be construed as an indicator of BBB leakage (or transport across the BBB).

Hi:

I´m trying to standardize Tau protein by using IHC in an animal model. Where can I get positive Alzheimer brain tissue?

Hello everybody,

In our laboratory, we would like to use brain structures from the same animal for different analysis techniques (ELISA and IHQ). Therefore, we would not like to perform transcranial perfusion using PFA, but rather preserve some structures (brain stem, spinal cord) in PFA after extraction.

Does anyone recommend any fixing technique for these structures in this case?

Thank you!

To be effective, ECT treatment for depression needs to induce seizures. It is assumed that ECT acts on the brain, but I think it acts on the ear. A strong vestibular stimulus can reset the brain. In unilateral ECT, a strong impulse traveling up the auditory nerve may well induce bilateral seizures, but the anatomical route to the brain is stronger contralaterally. So, does unilateral ECT produce unwanted or asymmetrical motor effects that are homolateral if it acts via the ear, and contralateral if it is acting on the brain? I have not so far been able to find any data pertinent to these opposite predictions.

Hi,

I would like to quantify the total ROS in brain homogenates, however more of the protocol reviewed only determine ROS in cell. I'm wondering if someone has a protocol for determine ROS in brain homogenates. I appreciate the collaboration with which any information.

Fatima

is there anyone who have completed his research on heart beat evoked potential. can we discuss it on the base of literature? thanks,

Is any other brain parts rather than amygdala and hippocampus are implicated in anxiety and depression pathophysiology?

Thanks

Hi everyone,

I am conducting research on the resilience of Austrian towns post-Covid. I have access to secondary data and want to understand the significance of independent variables (some nominal, some on an interval scale) on dependent variables by comparing data from the years 2019, 2020, and 2021 which are also scale data.

Now to pick your brains: what test can I use to ensure the comparability of the years to give me significant results?