Noah Ziemba
A major interest in the field of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the rate of neuron generation following a TBI. The goal of this project was to determine if there was significant difference in neuron creation in rats that received a TBI compared to those that did not. To accomplish this, tissue was collected from rats and stained for the ki-67 protein, a marker of cell proliferation.
The rat brain tissue was sectioned, stained, and coverslipped so that it could be analyzed.
I analyzed the tissue with a light microscope and Stereo-Investigator software. The region of interest for the project was the dentate gyrus which is pictured on the left. I had to identify and outline this area.
After identification of the region of interest, I had to systematically identify stained cells. When determining what cells were stained I also had to decided where in the dentae gyrus the cells were located.
I was able to collect a large amount of data through the process described. With this data I was able to run ANOVA tests to determine statistical signifigance between the experimental groups.