INNERVATION OF TARGET-IDENTIFIED SYMPATHETIC NEURONS

作为一名新任命的助理教授， 目标是在我的研究项目中获得一个强大的研究项目， 实验室 我的智力兴趣在于理解 自主神经系统的特异性机制以及如何 这些机制是在发育过程中产生的。 我的长期 职业目标是发展一个强大的实验室，致力于 阐明神经生物学的这些方面。 部 佛蒙特大学的解剖学和神经生物学是一个 追求这些目标的绝佳场所，因为实力 该部门的关键在于一个多学科的方法， 几个探索自主神经相关问题的实验室 系统 此外，还有一个强大的自主研究组件， 在药理学、生理学和心理学系。 自主神经系统的复杂性，特别是 在中枢神经系统之间插入神经节中继 系统和外围，排除了任何容易确定的 参与自主神经的微分控制的神经回路 功能协调发展的 所提出的实验通过以下方式规避了这个问题： 提供了一种方法来研究目标识别的神经支配， 神经节细胞或节前神经元。 方法是标记 特定的神经元群体，通过放置一个逆行运输 目标中的荧光染料。 单个逆行标记 然后，在直接视觉下， 对照，用标记酶辣根过氧化物酶（HRP）， 描绘出它们的树枝状分支。 免疫组织化学和 电子显微镜分析目标识别，HRP填充 单元格将确定特定类型的输入是否相关 神经节或节前的特定功能 水平 这些实验的意义在于它们 潜在的提供基本的洞察力的化学性质 自主神经系统中的特定相互作用。

As a newly-appointed assistant professor my immediate career objective is to get a strong research program going in my laboratory. My intellectual interest is in understanding mechanisms of specificity in the autonomic nervous system and how those mechanisms arise during development. Thus my long-term career objective is to develop a strong lab committed to elucidating these aspects of neurobiology. The Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of Vermont is an excellent place for the pursuit of these goals since the strength of the department lies in a multi-disciplinary approach with several labs exploring questions relevant to the autonomic nervous system. Moreover, there is a strong autonomic research component in the departments of Pharmacology, Physiology and Psychology. The complexity of the autonomic nervous system, in particular the interposition of a ganglionic relay between the central nervous system and the periphery, precludes any easy determination of the neural circuitry involved in the differential control of autonomic functions. The proposed experiments circumvent this problem by providing a way to study the innervation of target-identified ganglion cells or preganglionic neurons. The approach is to label specific neuronal groups by placing a retrogradely transported fluorescent dye in their target. Individual retrogradely labeled neurons are then intracellularly filled, under direct visual control, with the marking enzyme horseradish peroxidase (HRP) to delineate their dendritic arborizations. Immunohistochemical and electron microscopic analysis of target-identified, HRP-filled cells will determine whether specific types of inputs are related to particular functions at either the ganglionic or preganglionic level. The significance of these experiments lies in their potential for providing basic insight into the chemical nature of specific interactions in the autonomic nervous system.