Electrophysiology
How do Anti-Epileptic Drugs Work: - also offered as MBiomedSc
Supervisor: Dr Chris French
Project Collaborators – Prof T O’Brien, Prof D Williams
Project Site: Department of Medicine (RMH), Royal Melbourne Hospital
Contact: Dr Chris French T: 8344 3276 E: frenchc@unimelb.edu.au
Website: http://sites.google.com/a/hfbg1.net/crf_lab/
Project Description: Despite many years of use and research, it is still not clear how even some of the oldest forms of anti-epileptic drugs work. That which is known is generally based on the effects of these compounds on single neurons, rather than examining how activity of the whole inter-connected neural network of the mammalian CNS is modulated. This project involves studying the effects of AED’s at several levels of organization of the CNS – single channel (voltage-gated sodium, potassium and calcium channels), single neuron, principal neuron/interneuron dynamics, as well as glial cell effects. Patch clamp techniques are used for recording dissociated neuron and neurons in the intact brain slice, and these observations will be extended with high-speed calcium imaging with conventional microscopy as well as multiphoton techniques. This projects affords excellent opportunities for skill development in electrophysiology, pharmacology, advanced microscopy and computational neuroscience.
How do Antipsychotic Drugs Trigger Seizures? - also offered as MBiomedSc
Supervisor: Dr Chris French
Project Collaborators – Prof T O’Brien, Prof D Williams
Project Site: Department of Medicine (RMH), Royal Melbourne Hospital
Contact: Dr Chris French T: 8344 3276 E: frenchc@unimelb.edu.au
Website: http://sites.google.com/a/hfbg1.net/crf_lab/
Project Description: The treatment of psychosis and schizophrenia has been greatly improved with the use of anti-psychotic drugs such as chlorpromazine, haloperidol and newer drugs such as clozapine. One significant side effect of these drugs is that they tend to lower the threshold for epileptic seizures to occur. The aim of this project is to quantify enhanced seizure activity with this type of drug using the in vitro brain slice technique. Seizure provocation threshold, synaptic transmission and single neuron properties will be assessed using rat hippocampal brain slices after acute application of these drugs.
Multi-Electrode Recording in the Rat Brain - also offered as MBiomedSc
Supervisor: Dr Chris French
Project Collaborators – Prof T O’Brien, Dr P O’Brien
Project Site: Department of Medicine (RMH), Royal Melbourne Hospital
Contact: Dr Chris French T: 8344 3276 E: frenchc@unimelb.edu.au
Website: http://sites.google.com/a/hfbg1.net/crf_lab/
Project Description: Although immense advances have occurred in recording electrical signals from the CNS, these observations tend to be of single cells in a matrix of many millions of neurons and hence give very limited information about how the whole highly interconnected network functions. One solution to this problem is to use banks of tetrodes, bundles of four 10-20 micron diameter electrodes to record many cells simultaneously, either from a single region or from different parts of the brain. Up to 32 electrodes can be implanted with our system, and sophisticated spike detection and analysis algorithms are available to organize the complex multiple signals recorded. This recording technique can also be easily adapted to exploring epileptiform discharges in models of both focal and generalised epilepsy (including drug effects), which will the main aim of this project. This project provides opportunity to learn cutting-edge electrophysiological and computing analysis techniques for assessment of function of the mammalian nervous system.