Moore Jeffrey D, Deschênes Martin, Kleinfeld David
Department of Physics 0374, University of California, San Diego;
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Centre de Recherche de l'Université Laval Robert-Giffard.
J Vis Exp. 2015 Apr 27(98):51453. doi: 10.3791/51453.
There are a variety of techniques to monitor extracellular activity of single neuronal units. However, monitoring this activity from deep brain structures in behaving animals remains a technical challenge, especially if the structures must be targeted stereotaxically. This protocol describes convenient surgical and electrophysiological techniques that maintain the animal's head in the stereotaxic plane and unambiguously isolate the spiking activity of single neurons. The protocol combines head restraint of alert rodents, juxtacellular monitoring with micropipette electrodes, and iontophoretic dye injection to identify the neuron location in post-hoc histology. While each of these techniques is in itself well-established, the protocol focuses on the specifics of their combined use in a single experiment. These neurophysiological and neuroanatomical techniques are combined with behavioral monitoring. In the present example, the combined techniques are used to determine how self-generated vibrissa movements are encoded in the activity of neurons within the somatosensory thalamus. More generally, it is straightforward to adapt this protocol to monitor neuronal activity in conjunction with a variety of behavioral tasks in rats, mice, and other animals. Critically, the combination of these methods allows the experimenter to directly relate anatomically-identified neurophysiological signals to behavior.
有多种技术可用于监测单个神经元单位的细胞外活动。然而，在行为动物的深部脑结构中监测这种活动仍然是一项技术挑战，特别是如果这些结构必须通过立体定位进行靶向时。本方案描述了方便的手术和电生理技术，这些技术可将动物的头部保持在立体定位平面，并明确分离单个神经元的放电活动。该方案结合了对警觉啮齿动物的头部约束、用微电极进行细胞旁监测以及离子电渗染料注射，以在事后组织学中确定神经元的位置。虽然这些技术本身都已成熟，但本方案重点关注它们在单个实验中联合使用的具体细节。这些神经生理学和神经解剖学技术与行为监测相结合。在本示例中，这些联合技术用于确定在体感丘脑中，自我产生的触须运动是如何在神经元活动中编码的。更一般地说，将本方案适用于监测大鼠、小鼠和其他动物在各种行为任务中的神经元活动是很直接的。关键的是，这些方法的结合使实验者能够将解剖学上确定的神经生理信号与行为直接关联起来。
