Glucose clamping in freely moving rodents is a crucial tool in glucose metabolism, but it requires an optimal surgical approach. RRSSC, Instech, and TS Nielsen Scientific Consult are proud to announce the Module GC hands-onlaboratory course on the glucose clamp technique in stress-free, conscious and freely movingmice and rats.The course has been organized annually since 2016 and was created in cooperation with Dr.David Wasserman and the Vanderbilt Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center, allowing us tobenefit from their extensive experience using the state-of-the-art clamping techniques, which hasbeen continuously developed and refined at the Vanderbilt MMPC for nearly 20 years.Since its inception in the late 1970s, the glucose clamp has become the gold standard forassessing β-cell function, insulin action and glucose turnover in vivo. Over the years, the clamptechnique has been adapted and modified extensively to accommodate the vast range of modelorganisms being used in metabolic research, from mouse to man. However, due to the limitedsizes of rodents, particularly mice, performing a clamp in these species poses a challengingtechnical barrier to overcome, mainly because the blood volume available for sampling is smalland because the catheters for infusion and sampling need to be implanted surgically.Consequently, clamping rats and mice requires specialized equipment and microsurgery skills inorder to obtain reliable and reproducible results.Thus, the Glucose Clamp module aims to provide the participants with the necessary skillsto design, execute, and analyze a glucose clamp experiment in conscious, freely moving rats andmice, taking the animal from surgery to data analysis. Course participants will haveample opportunity to become familiar with the surgical techniques and experimental proceduresneeded to clamp their rodent species of choice. Furthermore, through lectures on isotopictracers, experimental design considerations, and data analysis, participants will acquire theknowledge to benefit from the full potential of the glucose clamp technique. With this, we hope toaid those laboratories needing to …
ADInstruments & RRSSC course: Excellence in Microsurgery
ADInstruments and RRSSC offer new courses on Blood Pressure (BP), Left Ventricular Pressure (LVP) and PV-loops
RRSSC starts courses with NeuroLux wireless optogenetic implants in rats and mice
Breakthrough Technologies for Optogenetics At RRSSC we were impressed by the battery-free lightweight ultra miniaturized implantable optogenetics modules. The Neurolux devices are fully implantable and ultra-lightweight. The flexible light sources operate wirelessly across nearly any experimental environment with user-definable pulse frequencies and durations. The system can be configured to meet the needs of many different circumstances. The complete system comes with a laptop, user-friendly GUI, and an initial set of disposable implants. Conduct studies in freely behaving subjects NeuroLux system provides invasive tools with no external antennas, batteries, fibre optic cables, or head mount. In addition, the implants have an ultra-lightweight construction (0.02 g), which allows subjects to move naturally as individuals or as interacting members of social groups. With the wireless battery-free operation, NeuroLux implants have unlimited operational lifetimes. In addition, the thin, flexible form factors allow the device to affix on top of the subject’s skull for up to fourteen months. Implantation procedure For surgical implantation, optimal stereotaxic techniques and knowledge of good surgical practice are needed. Next to that, a number of special instruments have been designed by the Neurolux Team to optimize implantation whilst minimizing damage to the implant. We are in the process of setting up a three-day training at RRSSC. We will keep you posted.