Electrophysiology workstations to study the cellular and molecular bases of behaviours

精神疾病，如药物滥用和精神分裂症，涉及大脑功能的巨大变化，其中一些发生在细胞或突触水平。我们的研究小组通过将动物模型的专业知识与大脑功能微观变化的复杂测量相结合，测量这些细微的变化，以及它们与不同疾病的行为症状之间的关系。目前，我们有足够的设备在成瘾和精神分裂症的标准实验室测试中测量啮齿动物的行为，但精确测量脑细胞功能变化的能力受到限制，因为现有设备已满负荷使用，而且由于大量学生使用这些设备而负担过重。因此，我们需要资金来改善我们的设备，以测量啮齿动物的脑细胞功能，这些啮齿动物表现出与人类精神分裂症和成瘾有关的症状和行为。这种新设备将使我们大大提高我们的生产力，并在理解这些疾病（以及其他疾病）的神经基础方面取得实质性进展。此外，我们的学生可以学会结合不同的方法方法，这是他们未来科学事业的重要资产。

Psychiatric disorders such as substance abuse and schizophrenia involve dramatic changes in brain functioning, some of which occur at cellular or synaptic levels. Our research group measures these subtle changes and how they relate to behavioural symptoms in different disorders by combining expertise in animal models with sophisticated measures of microscopic changes in brain functioning. Currently, we are well equipped to measure rodent behaviour in standard lab tests of addiction and schizophrenia, but ability to produce precise measures of changes in brain cells function is restricted because the available equipment is utilized at full capacity and overtaxed by the large number of students using the equipment. Therefore, we request funding to improve our facility to measure brain cell function in rodents displaying symptoms and behaviours reminiscent of human schizophrenia and addiction. This new equipment would allow us to dramatically improve our productivity, and make substantial advances in the understanding of the neural basis of these disorders (as well as others). Furthermore, our students could learn to combine different methodological approaches, an important asset for their future scientific careers.