CAREER: An Internet-Based Multimedia Approach to Teaching Developmental Neurobiology with Integrated Research on Neuronal Migration

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9734550 PHELPS Dr. Phelps' Early Career award contains both educational and research components related to the field of developmental neurobiology. The educational aim is to build an internet-based multimedia learning system for a new undergraduate course on developmental neurobiology, in collaboration with Dr. Gambhir and colleagues at the Crump Institute for Biological Imaging at UCLA. During nervous system development, many complex tissue movements occur that are difficult for students to understand using the typical 2-dimensional drawings from textbooks, yet they come alive when presented as 3-dimensional animations. Designing colorful animations depicting these complicated tissue movements is an important goal of this project. An additional focus is to incorporate data from scientists working in the field of developmental neurobiology. For example, time-lapse video microscopy demonstrating observations of living neurons will be used in classroom presentations to introduce students to exciting new research techniques. Students are able to review class presentations over the web, and utilize interactive quizzes as study aids. Such evaluation tools will help the students, but also will provide the teachers with information about the effectiveness of this new internet-based learning system. The aim of the research component is to determine what structures and/or molecules guide the unique migration of a group of chemically defined neurons during early spinal cord development. The neurons under study, called the "U-derived" cells, use acetylcholine as their neurotransmitter and can be identified by both immunological and histochemical methods. Between embryonic days 15 and 16, U-derived cells migrate from their initial ventral locations to their final destinations within the dorsal and central parts of the spinal cord. These cells migrate in a direction perpendicular to the radial pathways utilized by most other neurons. To determine the structural and/or molecular cues that guide this unique migration, Dr. Phelps will attempt to block the migration experimentally. Dr. Phelps uses an organotypic slice culture system that has been shown to support normal migration of U-derived cells and maintains relatively normal intercellular relationships between neurons and their environment, yet is accessible to both chemical and surgical manipulation, which would not be possible the whole embryo. A variety of different experiments are designed to disrupt this cell migration in culture. Results from these experiments will determine if the dorsal migration of the U-derived cells is guided by structural cues, such as early forming axons, and/or by molecular cues such as different types of adhesion molecules.