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      General Anaesthetic Modulation of Memory-Related Gene Expression in the Cerebral Cortex

      Bell, Laura Maree
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      Bell, Laura. 2015. MSc Real Time qPCR Data..xlsx
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      Bell, L. M. (2015). General Anaesthetic Modulation of Memory-Related Gene Expression in the Cerebral Cortex (Thesis, Master of Science (Research) (MSc(Research))). University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10289/11478
      Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/11478
      Abstract
      General anaesthetics have been widely used in a clinical setting, having remained one of the most important drugs in medicine for their role in enabling major surgical procedures to be carried out. One of the fundamental outcomes of an anaesthetic is amnesia, as this prevents patient recall of events surrounding surgery. The hippocampal region of the mammalian brain has been investigated for its role in memory formation, however the cerebral cortex also has recognised importance in memory consolidation and storage processes. General anaesthetics cause widespread neurochemical changes in the brain and the disruption to memory consolidation processes is likely to involve alteration to the expression patterns of memory-related genes. The aim of this research was to investigate the cerebrocortical gene expression pattern of five memory-related genes, Arc, Bdnf, CaMKIIα, Gjd2 and Grin1 during exposure to anaesthesia induced by sevoflurane, isoflurane and propofol. Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used to analyse expression of the individual mRNA transcripts and REST© software was used to carry out statistical analysis of the mRNA expression of each gene of interest. Our research demonstrated that Bdnf was significantly down-regulated by sevoflurane at t=2 hours and t=4 hours and propofol at t=2 hours (p<0.05). Up-regulation of Arc after a four exposure to propofol was also observed but no change in Arc was found at the other time points. There was no change in the expression of CaMKIIα, Gjd2 or Grin1 during sevoflurane- or propofol- induced anaesthesia. We recommend analysis of other Bdnf transcript variants in the mouse brain during anaesthesia, as well as levels of the BDNF protein to further validate these results.
      Date
      2015
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Name
      Master of Science (Research) (MSc(Research))
      Supervisors
      Peters, Linda
      Voss, Logan J.
      Publisher
      University of Waikato
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      All items in Research Commons are provided for private study and research purposes and are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
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