Veterans Administration Medical Center, San Diego 6 articles published in JoVE Medicine Analyzing Oxygen Consumption Rate in Primary Cultured Mouse Neonatal Cardiomyocytes Using an Extracellular Flux Analyzer Shizuko Tachibana1, Chao Chen1, Oliver R. Zhang1, Sarah V. Schurr1, Cameron Hill1, Ruixia Li1, Ana M. Manso1, Jianlin Zhang1, Aleksander Andreyev2, Anne N. Murphy2, Robert S. Ross1,3, Yoshitake Cho1 1Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, 2Department of Pharmacology, University of California San Diego, 3Cardiology Section, Department of Medicine, Veterans Administration Healthcare, San Diego The goal of this protocol is to illustrate how to use mouse neonatal cardiomyocytes as a model system to examine how various factors can alter oxygen consumption in the heart. Cancer Research Multimodal Bioluminescent and Positronic-emission Tomography/Computational Tomography Imaging of Multiple Myeloma Bone Marrow Xenografts in NOG Mice Gilbert Gastelum1, Eric Y. Chang2, David Shackleford3, Nicholas Bernthal3, Jeffery Kraut1,3, Kevin Francis4, Victoria Smutko1, Patrick Frost1,3 1Greater Los Angeles Veteran Administration Healthcare System, 2San Diego Veterans Administration Healthcare System, 3University of California, Los Angeles, 4Perkin Elmer Here we use bioluminescent, X-ray, and positron-emission tomography/computed tomography imaging to study how inhibiting mTOR activity impacts bone marrow-engrafted myeloma tumors in a xenograft model. This allows for physiologically relevant, non-invasive, and multimodal analyses of the anti-myeloma effect of therapies targeting bone marrow-engrafted myeloma tumors in vivo. Medicine A Radio-telemetric System to Monitor Cardiovascular Function in Rats with Spinal Cord Transection and Embryonic Neural Stem Cell Grafts Shaoping Hou1, Armin Blesch2, Paul Lu3,4 1Spinal Cord Research Center, Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, Drexel University College of Medicine, 2Spinal Cord Injury Center, Heidelberg University Hospital, 3Veterans Administration Medical Center, San Diego, CA, 4Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego We present a protocol for using a radio-telemetric system to record cardiovascular parameters in T4 spinal cord transected rats eight weeks after embryonic brainstem neural stem cell grafting into the lesion site. Telemetry is an advanced technique to accurately evaluate cardiovascular function in conscious freely moving spinal cord injured rats. Neuroscience Real-time Imaging of Axonal Transport of Quantum Dot-labeled BDNF in Primary Neurons Xiaobei Zhao1, Yue Zhou2, April M. Weissmiller1, Matthew L. Pearn3,4, William C. Mobley1, Chengbiao Wu1 1Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, 2School of Biomedical Engineering and Med-X Research Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 3Department of Anesthesiology, University of California, San Diego, 4VA San Diego Healthcare System Axonal transport of BDNF, a neurotrophic factor, is critical for the survival and function of several neuronal populations. Some degenerative disorders are marked by disruption of axonal structure and function. We demonstrated the techniques used to examine live trafficking of QD-BDNF in microfluidic chambers using primary neurons. Neuroscience Promotion of Survival and Differentiation of Neural Stem Cells with Fibrin and Growth Factor Cocktails after Severe Spinal Cord Injury Paul Lu1,2, Lori Graham2, Yaozhi Wang2, Di Wu2, Mark Tuszynski1,2 1Veterans Administration Medical Center, San Diego, 2Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego Fibrin matrices containing growth factors were used to retain grafted neural stem cells into sites of complete spinal cord transection. Grafted cells completely filled the lesion cavity and differentiated into multiple neural cell types, including neurons that extended axons into host spinal cord over long distances. Medicine Endotracheal Intubation in Mice via Direct Laryngoscopy Using an Otoscope Joanna L. Thomas1,2, Justin Dumouchel2, Jinghong Li2, Jenna Magat2, Dana Balitzer3, Timothy D. Bigby1,2 1Medical and Research Services, VA San Diego Healthcare System, 2Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 3School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego We have developed a simple, reliable, and relatively inexpensive method for endotracheal intubation in mice via direct laryngoscopy using an otoscope with a 2.0 mm speculum. This technique is atraumatic and can be used for repeated measurements in chronic experiments. We find it superior to tracheostomy or previously reported nonsurgical techniques.