PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - K Sato
AU  - Y Momose-Sato
AU  - T Sakai
AU  - A Hirota
AU  - K Kamino
TI  - Responses to glossopharyngeal stimulus in the early embryonic chick brainstem: spatiotemporal patterns in three dimensions from repeated multiple-site optical recording of electrical activity
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.15-03-02123.1995
DP  - 1995 Mar 01
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 2123--2140
VI  - 15
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/15/3/2123.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/15/3/2123.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.1995 Mar 01; 15
AB  - In an effort to assess the spatial patterning of glossopharyngeal responses in the early embryonic chick brainstem, we used a multiple- site optical recording system with a 12 x 12 element photodiode array and a voltage-sensitive merocyanine-rhodanine dye (NK2761) to monitor neural transmembrane voltage activities. Seven and 8 d old embryonic chick brainstems were sliced into 1400–1600 microns thick sections with the glossopharyngeal and vagal nerves attached, and then stained with the dye. Neural voltage-related optical signals were evoked by a positive brief (depolarizing) square current pulse applied to the glossopharyngeal nerve with a microsuction electrode, and then recorded simultaneously from many loci in the objective two-dimensional image plane of a compound microscope. In addition to the multiple-site optical recording technique, we tried to introduce an optical sectioning method by changing the focal plane of the microscope to obtain three-dimensional information. Thus, we have been able to assess semiquantitatively the three-dimensional profiles of two glossopharyngeal response areas corresponding to the nucleus of the glossopharyngeal nerve (nucleus nervi glossopharyngei) and the nucleus of the tractus solitarius. Furthermore, glutaminergic excitatory postsynaptic potentials were determined within the response area corresponding to the nucleus of the tractus solitarius. In addition, we also compared the glossopharyngeal and vagal response areas and found that the cores of the related nuclei are separated in three dimensions.