The event-related potential (ERP) is a major methodological tool used to investigate the functioning of the cerebral cortex of humans and other mammalian species. The cerebral cortex is the part of the mammalian brain that is most critical for sensory perception, motor action, and cognition. ...

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of a current approach in defining the relationships between the firing patterns of groups of neurons recorded from the freely behaving rodent. The design and construction of a 16-channel headstage and its typical integration with a commerc ...

Understanding the temporal and spectral structure of neural coding with especial attention to regional specificity and behavioral function is one goal of system neuroscience. Several methodological approaches have been used to analyze signals arising from multisite or distr ...

The use of population codes derived from ensembles of rat hippocampal neurons to control performance of a delayed-nonmatch-to-sample (DNMS) memory task illustrates the important functional and organizational specificity of simultaneously active neurons in this important b ...

The medial septum (MS) is a structure best known for its role in theta rhythm generation in the �hippocampus. Theta rhythm is a relatively slow brain oscillation of 3–12 Hz that is important for memory formation and synaptic plasticity. Despite that the role of the MS in theta generation has been invest ...

The last 20 years of clinical neuroscience research has witnessed a fundamental shift in the conceptualization of neuropsychiatric disorders, with the dominant psychological and neurochemical theories of the past now complemented by a growing emphasis on developmental, genet ...

Myelin, the multilayered membrane that enwraps and insulates neuronal axons for fast signal propagation, is a plasma membrane specialization of oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells in the central and peripheral nervous system, respectively. Here we provide our lab protocols for the p ...

During the process of myelination, oligodendrocytes spirally enwrap neuronal axons and form multilamellar myelin sheets. Oligodendrocytes in culture are characterized by their numerous membranous extensions containing an elaborate network of microtubules, they are de ...

Astrocyte activation and reactive gliosis are seen in many neuropathologies, e.g., neurotrauma, stroke, epilepsy, or neurodegenerative diseases. Astrocyte activation alters gene expression and leads to morphological and functional changes in astrocytes with important fu ...

The cytoskeleton constitutes a dynamic intracellular framework for inbound and outbound trafficking of cell organelles and is responsible for cell shaping including cell division. While transport in neuronal compartments has extensively been conquered in particular the sh ...

Neuronal intermediate filaments are the most prominent cytoskeleton component of adult neurons in both central and peripheral nervous system. They include neurofilament triplet proteins, peripherin, α-internexin, nestin, and synemin. Although it was initially thought that ...

The cytoskeleton plays a key role in maintaining the highly asymmetrical shape and structural polarity of neurons that are essential for neuritogenesis and neuronal physiology. In neurodegenerative diseases, the cytoskeleton is abnormally assembled and impairment of neurot ...

This chapter presents the protocol established in our laboratory to determine the cytoskeletal genomic fabric (CGF), defined as the most inter-coordinately and stably expressed gene web whose encoding proteins form the intracellular scaffolding. In addition to detailed experi ...

Recent advances in the identification and analysis of protein–protein interaction complexes associated with synapses and synaptic proteins deepened not only our insights into the molecular composition and dynamic structural makeup of interneuronal connections but cont ...

Postsynaptic densities (PSDs) are cytoskeletal specializations present in synaptic contacts in the central nervous system. PSDs have been considered to be subcellular organelles that maintain and cluster the synaptic signal transduction apparatus in direct contact with the a ...

Using live confocal microscope imaging of molecular probes, retrospective immunolabeling, classical electron microscopy, and cultured Aplysia neurons this chapter describes the experimental approaches to document the cascades of cytoskeleton remodeling that under ...

In combination with bioinformatics and molecular biological techniques proteomic approaches become more and more indispensable in order to deepen our understanding of cellular functions. Since the cytoskeleton is presented by a highly dynamic network, engaged in many basic cel ...

The dynamic nature of cellular cytoskeleton is vital to many cell functions. It was shown that all three filamentous components of the cytoskeleton (F-actin, microtubules, and intermediate filaments) share dynamic behavior. In this chapter we address briefly some basic features of cyt ...

In this chapter, we summarize and describe various methods that have been used to detect glycocalyx and to study the interactions between glycocalyx and actin cytoskeleton with the emphasis in the nervous tissue. We highlight two methodologies to analyze the direct interaction between g ...

Here we present a detailed guide for performing in vitro trafficking assays. These are high-resolution light microscopy assays designed to look at the cytoskeletal filament-based trafficking of cellular organelles. The strategy is to partially purify organelles from lysed mamma ...