This application is for a Scientist Development Award. Over the past decade, I have established a monkey model for perceptual and cognitive functioning of the human infant. One of the stated goals of my work has been to lay the groundwork for the investigation of neural mechanisms underlying normal and impaired development. The research described in this application will provide me with the knowledge and skills necessary to attain this career goal. My overall career development need is to gain expertise in a more basic and more specific experimental design that encompasses highly-defined manipulations of the brain. To this end, I have proposed career development and research activities that will give me didactic exposure to basic neuroanatomy and developmental neurobiology, enable me to acquire the skills to selectively manipulate specific neurotransmitter pathways in circumscribed brain regions, and allow me to develop expertise in the conduct of research on CNS substrates of behavioral development. Specifically, the studies described in the current proposal will provide training and experience with (1) stereotaxic brain surgery, (2) focal infusion of pharmacological agents into specific brain areas, (3) electroencephalographic recording, (4) magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, and (5) histopathology. These skills will be applied in an examination of the effects of infant seizures on neurobehavioral development. The knowledge that will be obtained is important because there is """""""". . . concern that both seizures themselves and drugs used to treat them may damage the immature brain."""""""" The study will entail evoking moderate seizure activity by microinjection of bicuculline into a highly defined site in the limbic system of monkey brain. Development then will be studied longitudinally with a combination of behavioral and MRI/MR spectroscopy measures.
| Jurgen Wenzel, H; Born, D E; Dubach, M F et al. (2000) Morphological plasticity in an infant monkey model of temporal lobe epilepsy. Epilepsia 41 Suppl 6:S70-5 |
| Gunderson, V M; Dubach, M; Szot, P et al. (1999) Development of a model of status epilepticus in pigtailed macaque infant monkeys. Dev Neurosci 21:352-64 |
