The facility requested in this DRR-BRS shared Instrumentation Grant is a computerized color graphics workstation for the 3-dimensional analysis of cellular and molecular structure. This facility with data entry stations is too expensive to be purchased for a single user from an individual research grant. However, a large group (14 primary N.I.H. funded users at UAB) of investigators on our campus have direct application of their current N.I.H. funded research projects for the use of this facility. The UAB campus has a very strong group of researchers who are investigating the structure of neurons. This group utilizes a variety of experimental methods to allow visualization of neurons and their processes within the central nervous system (both with light and electron microscopy). The proposed facility will allow the 3-dimensional structure of these often very complex cells to be represented. Once these data are entered on the powerful processor, the files can be further analyzed by rotating or translating the image about any desired axis. A continuous range of perspectives are accessible. The 3-dimensional structure of these neurons (and their axonal arborizations at their target sites in other parts of the brain) is compared for different experimental conditions (during different stages of postnatal development, as a function of environmental disruption of the brain's normal developmental sequence, etc.) The users of this f;acility at UAB will analyze neural structure from a variety of sites within the CNS (retina, dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus, primary and secondary visual cortices, superior colliculus, cingulate cortex, hippocampus and nucleus of the solitary tract). This facility will also permit 3-dimensional reconstruction of regions or nuclei in the central nervous systems that have a particular metabolic rate as a function of stimuli in the environment (C14-2-deoxyglucose technique). The 3-dimensional structural changes in epithelial cells in response to hormonal stimuli will also be investigated. Yet another group is calculating the 3-dimensional structure of dental caries. Finally, the facility will be used by a group studying the tertiary structure of proteins based on crystallographic data. This facility will extend the data analysis of all of these research groups far beyond what is presently available to any one of them. The high resolution 3-dimensional analysis of cell, tissue, and molecular structure will greatly aid in accomplishing the specific aims of each of these 14 investigator's individual N.I.H. funded projects.
