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BIOL-415 Nerve cell mechanisms in behavior
BIOL-615 Neural bases of behavior
First test - Thursday, February 21, 2008 - Prof. Stark
All questions are short answer. 65 points total.
1. Answer at least one of these two: This particular fluid filled chamber
is hard to see because it is thin and cut right down the middle when we
make (name of?) this particular type of cut, right down the middle brain.
third ventrical, midsaggital
2. The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body because
the tract (what is the official word for when the tract crosses from one
side to the other?).
decussates
3. What apparatus or type of surgery do you need to put a lesion deep into
a live rat's brain?
stereotactic (same word for both questions)
4. What's the name of the most famous type of neurological surgery (psychosurgery
for psychiatric patients) chopping off connections to one part of the brain?
frontal lobotomy
5. Why would a neuroscience snob tell you that the cell bodies that make
the optic nerve should not be called "ganglion cells?"
because they are part of the central nervous system (hence nuclear) would
be the more accurate term
6. I showed you two coronal sections. One showed caudate and putamen. The
other showed the third of the three basal ganglia called (what?).
globus pallidus
7. Answer at least one of these: Cell bodies right outside the dorsal root
of the spinal cord carry (what type of?) information in what direction (official
word of toward the central nervous system)?
somatosensory, afferent
8. I showed you a spectacular cell, the cerebellar Purkinje cell. How could
Santiago Ramon y Cajal create that picture? Answer either (1) How did he
do that way back around "the turn of the century (around 1900)? or
(2) How could he see that one cell when there were "zillions"
of other neurons near it?
he drew it carefully, Golgi's staining technique highlights single cells
in their entirety
9. Answer one of these two RELATED questions about the merits of confocal
microscopy (in comparison with standard fluorescence microscopy). (1) Why
do the pictures I showed you from the text look so clear? Or (2) How come
I was able to put together a stack of images to rotate or to focus through?
"optical sectioning," everything out of the plane of section is
not collected and many sections can be put together in a stack
10. A fancy brain imaging technique was used by former neuro student Epstein
to show that early blind subjects has less tract connecting the thalamus
to the (answer either) (1) Brodman area #? Or (2) lobe?
#17, occipital
11. If a vesicle were "electron lucent," what would that imply
about what kind of substances it is or is not stained by?
not stained by heavy metals that are electron dense
12. Nerves can be studded with spines. Where are these? Your answer can
relate to a structural compartment, or I would accept a functional answer.
dendrite, post synasptic membrane
13. "Dynein toward - end, retrograde" my-oh-my my outlines are
telegraphic! Pick one and answer it: (1) Minus end of what? Or (2) Where
would the transported molecule end up? Or (3) Tell about a virus transported
that way.
microtubule, cell body, rabies, herpes
14. A cell membrane in the electron microscope is dark on the inside and
outside and light in the middle. There aren't enough lines in myelin. Where
did they go?
inner halves merge as cytoplasm is squeezed out, outer sides merge as extracellular
space is squeezed out.
15. A friend tells you (s)he doing research on how to locally down-regulate
oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (OMgp), so you say, "Oh yeah, that has
great potential for the treatment of (what?).
axon regeneration after injury in the CNS
16. According to LS Halstead, MD, who recovered partially from the polio
he had as a youth, (answer either) (1) what are the symptoms of post-polio
syndrome? Or (2) What cellular events are going on in post-polio syndrome?
increased weakness as an adult, loss of the sprouting that made nerves innervate
more muscle cells
17. Two resistors, R1 and R2, are hooked in series to a battery whose voltage
is E, Write an equation that conveys two notions: (1) Ohm's law, and (2)
two resistors in series form a voltage divider.
E=IR1+IR2
18. Is Guillan Barre syndrome caused by flu vaccination?
not proven, the frequency of GB after vaccination is the same as for non-vaccinated
people
19. "The cause of the resting potential is potassium ions flowing through
the potassium channel." Why is this not the whole truth?
in the equilibrium assumption, no ions need to flow for voltage
20. Why would an inside out patch be useful in studying channels gated by
ligands generated by the intracellular signal transduction cascade?
can "dip" it into solutions with such ligands (like cAMP and cGMP
21. Address 1, 2, or 3. Ouabain is a (1) cardiac (2) glycoside that binds
(3) a very important molecule.
can strengthen a weak heart beat, that describes the chemical bond, the
sodium pump
22. Hodgkin and Keynes were studying the properties of (what?) when they
measured the efflux of radioactive sodium from the squid giant axon.
the sodium pump
23. Why might a glass micropipette distort the shape of an action potential
without the proper amplifier?
has high resistance and capacitance, hence makes a low pass filther that
clips a fast signal
24. It seems like there ought to b e salt sensitive neurons to explain sodium
appetite. However, former neuro class student Joel Geerling showed thqat
neurons were sensitive to a hormone. What hormone?
aldosterone
25. In passive propagation (cable properties of the axon) why does the current
carried down the axoplasm get smaller as you go further from the applied
voltage?
leaks out through the membrane
26. In the classic Hodgkin-Huxley voltage clamp experiments, How did they
show that the early inward current was carried by sodium ions?
replace extracellular fluie with sodium free solution
27. Explain absolute refractory period on the basis of a property of a channel.
an inactivated channel cannot be activated (but a closed channel can)
28. What would be a useful property (of a cell) when choosing a cell type
for heterologous expression of a channel?
should not express the channel already, should be eukaryotic so thatpost-translational
modifications wold be the same
29. "Human ether-a-go-go." Why would mutants be considered to
be conditional when they were first found in Drosophila?
shaking only seen under ether anesthesia
30. How does the shaker protein detect voltage?
S4, with it's positive charges, rotates
31. Why would the electric organ of the electric eel be better than the
squid giant axon for cloning the sodium channel?
expresses plenty of channel
32. Give one of the three possible membrane compartments where calcium channels
would be important in muscle contraction.
pre-"synaptic" membrane, t-tbule, sarcoplasmic reticulum
33. Knowing about cystic fibrosis might help you to understand the channel
for what neurotransmitter?
GABA
34. Give one of the several reasons why alumni Michelle Li, also Johnnie
Moore, used PC12 cells in their published research.
35. Compare the conductance of a gap junction channel with that of a potassium
channel.
way higher
36. What's with the "36" when they call the gap junction protein
in the thalamus "Cx36?"
molecular weight
397 How did Nobel Prize winner Loewi prove that a substance released by
the vagus slows the heart?
solution bathing heart slowed by vagus stimulation slows another heart
38. What property of the neuromuscular junction rationalizes Sir Sherrington
referring to the spinal motor neuron as "the final common pathway"
of "the integrative action of the nervous system?
since there is only excitation at the vertebrate n.m.j, the motor neuron
is the last place excitation and inhibition can integrate
39. If you observed a coated vesicle near a synapse, say whether it is in
the process of exocytosing and justify your answer.
no. endocytosing, those are the pits with clathrin
40. Relate vesicle release with either (1) improperly canned goods, (2)
dangers of terrorism against civilians, or (3) facial cosmetic treatment.
BoTox decreases release, form heat resistant endospores turning into anaerobic
bacteria that make a potent toxin that can be injected to decrease face
wrinkles
41. Why, in Sir Bernard Katz's Nobel Prize-winning experiment, did they
refer to "end plate potentials" instead of "postsynaptic
potentials?"
neuromuscular junction was used to model a synapse
42. More important than monamine oxidase (MAO) and catechol-O-methyltransferase
(COMT), how is the action of norepinephrine terminated?
reuptake
43. Considering the localization in the perikaryon of translation (protein
synthesis) talk about the location of function of enzymes responsible for
synthesis of norepinephrine and acetylcholine.
steps in terminal so anterograde transport from cell body
44. Tell me 2 of 3 products, fragments "chopped" from pre-proenkephalin
A. Be very specific.
signal sequence, met enkephalin, leu enkephalin
45. Contrast the presence or lack of l- vs d- isomers for DOPA, dopamine,
and norepinephrine.
dopa cold be l or d, also NE but dopamine's carbons do not have 4 separate
groups
46. The white communicating ramus is on the way to (what?) and the gray
communicating ramus is on the way from (what? - same answer).
sympathetic ganglion
47. Atropine affects the enteric nervous system to achieve (what?)?
decrease in gastrointestinal motility
48. Out of the four CNS locations from which autonomic nerves eminate, where
is the origin of the nerves that mediate erection?
sacraol spinal cord
49. With respect to the corpus cavernosum, "norepinephrine contracts
smooth muscle via alpha-1 receptors." What is the functional effect?
inhibit erection by decreasing blood flow through arterioles
50. NO activates guanylyl cyclase (GC) an enzyme whose product is (what?).
cGMP
51. I heard on a TV talk show "an enzyme in turkey makes you sleepy."
Correct that incorrect statement, at least with respect to the conventional
wisdom.
an amino acid, tryptophan, not an enzyme
52. In terms of regulation of neurotransmitter action, how does Prozac affect
mood?
seretonin reuptake is inhibited
53. Melatonin is made (answer one of the following) (1) from what neurotransmitter?
Or (2) predominantly in what part of the brain?
5HT (serotonin) pineal
54. How did they show that the Raphe nuclei send serotonin all over the
brain?
histochemical fluorescence tract tracing, formaldehyde turned serotonin
into a fluorescent product
55. The discovery that MPTP was a contaminant in a bad batch of heroin helped
to develop an animal model to study (what?).
Parkinson's disease
56. What is bradykinesia?
decreased movement seen in Parkinson's
57. Although it sounds barbaric, electroconvulsive shock is still sometimes
used for the treatment of (what?).
depression
58. Opiates displaced tritiated naloxone to help Pert and Snyder identify
what molecule?
opiate receptor
59. Lysophosphatidylinositol is converted to 2-arachiconylglyceol, an endogenous
transmitter related to what drug?
cannibis (marijuana)
60. "Acetylcholine is used in the sympathetic nervous system."
Where?
at ganglia
61. How would alpha bungarotoxin help the snake get its prey?
paralyze
62. What is missing and where in myasthenia gravis?
nicotinic receptors at end plate
63. Some anesthetics, Valium, and barbiturates affect what kind of receptor
for what neurotransmitter?
channel for GABA (GABA-A receptor)
64. With dopamine as the ligand and the inhibitory G protein, what happens
to the level of what famous "second messenger?"
cAMP goes down
65. The blind Drosophila mutant norp A has no photoreceptor potential and
lacks phospholipase. Name either one of the two products of this enzyme
or the precursor. Abbreviations will suffice
PIP2 -> IP3 + DAG
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