Date of Award

Spring 4-29-2024

Degree Type

Honors Project

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Gerald Ballough, PhD

Second Advisor

Vincent Kling, PhD

Third Advisor

Whitney Howell, PhD

Abstract

Stereotaxic surgery was performed on Sprague Dawley rats using the Paxinos-Watson Atlas (1986) and a Kopf 900 stereotaxic apparatus with the goal of lesioning in the basolateral amygdaloid nucleus and hippocampal field CA3. The goal of the present analysis was to complete the process, from start to finish, of learning proper technique for stereotaxic surgery and analyzing the results and accuracy of the surgery to pinpoint ways to improve surgical technique with the goal of reducing animal numbers in later experiments where it should be implemented. In all cases, accuracy and distance from target location were analyzed to propose improvements to the procedure. With protocols now in place in our laboratory for stereotaxic surgery as well as manual tissue processing and embedding, microtome sectioning at 5 microns, and H&E staining, these techniques can be implemented into subsequent studies for the purpose of decreasing animal numbers and cost of experimentation, particularly as we use Kainic Acid seizure models. This poster recounts the details, results, and further directions surrounding this analysis.

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