Abstract
The neurotrophin BDNF plays important roles in neuronal survival, growth, and differentiation during development. Furthermore, it has been shown to mediate long-term changes in the synaptic activity in the hippocampus and in other brain regions, which are thought to underlie learning and memory formation. Cultured hippocampal neurons express TrkB receptors and, therefore, constitute a valuable experimental model to study in vitro BDNF-induced intracellular signaling pathways. In this chapter, we describe (1) the methodology used to prepare cultured hippocampal neurons from mice (wild-type-WT or transgenic animals) and rats and (2) three different approaches to investigate BDNF signaling: Western blot and Bio-Plex for overall signaling activity and immunocytochemistry to analyze where signaling activity takes place in neurons. The Bio-Plex approach allows the simultaneous characterization of different pathways using small sample volumes and within a short period of time.
Keywords
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Gomes, J.R., Lobo, A., Duarte, C.B., Grãos, M. (2017). BDNF-Induced Intracellular Signaling. In: Duarte, C., Tongiorgi, E. (eds) Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). Neuromethods, vol 143. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/7657_2017_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/7657_2017_6
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