The major aim of the Imaging and Microscopy Core is to facilitate the research of investigators by providing access to imaging and microscopy equipment that might be expensive to procure and maintain in an individual investigator's laboratory not dedicated to these techniques. This allows investigators to broaden the techniques available for their research within the Neuroscience Institute by allowing the burden of expenses to be shared between individual investigators, the Neuroscience Institute and Morehouse School of Medicine. The imaging core can provide equipment for brightfield, fluorescence and confocal microscopy and image acquisition. The hardware and software are designed to allow production and analysis of images associated with in situ hybridization, immunocytochemistry, histology, as well as digitization and analysis of gels produced from molecular techniques such as Northerns, Westerns, Southerns, PCR and RT-PCR. Images produced are publication quality. Among the U54 participants, the Davidson laboratory will use the cryostat and microscope imaging equipment of the core to perform pathological analyses on tissue samples harvested from mice on shifting light schedules. The Paul laboratory will use the cryostat in the imaging core to section brain tissue for in situ hybridization and subsequent optical density analysis of autoradiograph images. In addition, the Paul laboratory will use confocal microscopy to assist in mapping expression of the GABAA subunit expression in the suprachiasmatic nucleus and other hypothalamic nuclei using novel GABAA subunit antibodies. The Fukuhara laboratory will use brightfield and fluorescence microscopy to examine whether Bmall-luciferase DNA is successfully delivered to fibroblasts utilizing in situ hybridization and image analysis software provided by the core. Core equipment can also be used, under proper guidance by other Neuroscience Institute investigators and other Morehouse School of Medicine personnel.
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