Abstract:
Undergraduate neurobiology courses cover neural development as a major theme but there are few labs to provide hands-on experience with these topics. Here we share a 3-week set of lab activities using zebrafish embryos that allow students to see the direct effect of drug exposure on physical and emotional development. In these labs, student expose new embryos (Lab 1) to the environmental toxin lithium chloride, which inhibits anterior development and produces an eyeless phenotype in fixed larvae (Lab 2), and to psychiatric medications fluoxetine and quetiapine, which alter anxiety-like behavior measured live in grown juveniles (Lab 3). Lab worksheets ask students to investigate the signaling pathways affected by these drugs and how they might affect neural development in different ways. Student opinion surveys suggest these lab activities were successful in both providing hands-on work with zebrafish as a model organism for neural development and better understanding of how drugs can impact development of the nervous system.
摘要:
本科神经生物学课程将神经发育作为一个主要主题,但很少有实验室提供这些主题的实践经验。在这里,我们分享了一组为期3周的实验活动,使用斑马鱼胚胎,让学生看到药物暴露对身体和情绪发育的直接影响。在这些实验室里,学生将新胚胎(实验1)暴露于环境毒素氯化锂,抑制前发育并在固定幼虫中产生无眼表型(实验2),以及精神药物氟西汀和喹硫平,这改变了在成年少年中生活测量的焦虑样行为(实验室3)。实验室工作表要求学生研究受这些药物影响的信号通路,以及它们如何以不同方式影响神经发育。学生意见调查表明,这些实验室活动在提供斑马鱼作为神经发育模型生物的动手工作以及更好地了解药物如何影响神经系统发育方面都是成功的。