We wish to conduct three experiments which will demonstrate the importance of synapses in the human brain.
The first experiment that we conducted was a Synaptic Block.
In the synaptic block we had two cells communicating with one another, passing synapses between them. We then blocked the flow of calcium in one of the cells. So that no calcium was able to flow into the cell. This would illustrate how the lack of certain ions; thus changing the polarity of the cell, would affect the action potential.
The second experiment was to illustrate Two-Way Synapses.
In this experiment we wanted to see if a synapse could actually travel in two directions, to the cell body - as well as away from the cell body, because it is thought that the synapse can only travel in one direction - from the axon to the cell body.
The third and final experiment was to illustrate Neuron Degeneration.
In this experiment we allowed a cell to grow in culture for about 20 minutes; after this time we added 3% ethanol (alcohol), and made a time lapse video to illustrate the degeneration of a cell.
* We would like to note that each of these experiments were conducted by using the brain cells (neurons) from snails; which were dissected using pain free methods as they were anesthetized. The neurons were extracted by Dr.Syed, who is one of the few researchers in the world who has the ability to do so.
The snail dissections were completed by the following methods:
The first step in this procedure is to take the snail out of the tank, and put it onto a piece of paper towel. This action cleans the dries the snail, allowing for easier shell removal. To remove the shell, we pick it up from its bottom, the tip of the shell, and use the scissors to cut along the spiral. We must then completely remove the snail from its shell, remove any excess shell, and place the body into a beaker filled with a saline solution, with pH of 7.9. We then add in Listerine, approximately 10% of the saline solution volume, so we can anesthetize the snails, and ready them for dissection.
Upon letting the snails sit in the saline/Listerine solution for approximately 10 minutes, we are ready to begin the dissection. Essentially, what we are looking for is the brain of the snail, so we can utilize the neurons, however, we cannot dawdle, or the cells will die, rendering them useless. We remove the snail bodies from the saline solution, and place them into a dissection plate, which is filled with saline solution. We first pin down the mid section, punning as well the flap of skin to reveal the entire head, and then we pin down both antennae, fully exposing the snail. We snip this exposed area, vertically, from bottom to top, to reveal the esophagus. We then pin the upper layer of skin back, to get a better view of the snail’s insides. We can then see a black tube attached to a yellow gut. We grip this gut gently with our tweezers, and pull it upwards, then use our scissors to snip the base of the black tube. After doi ng this, we are able to pin the esophagus forward, to reveal the brain. The brain looks like numerous pinkish red orbs clumped together with tissue, and to remove this, we must first cut around the brain, not under it, keeping in mind that the section attached to the esophagus is intact, for it’ll be the basis for pinning the brain down. We must then snip only certain parts of tissue from the brain, to unfold it, and allow for pinning.=
Once the pinning is complete, with a lot of help from Dr. Naweed Syed, specific neurons were pulled from the brains, and placed in individual cultures. We can pair these neurons together, to set up the basis for our experiment, which is to observe how neurons communicate through synapses.