Hi Everyone. Juan here! My two month tour with Backyard Brains has reached its end, and I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to work on this project. I had three activites during the “practica” here at Backyard Brains: Recording from the Ganglia of Snails Helping on the Anemone Project Assisting in Outreach. The snail recording was my […]

Hi! Juan Ferrada here from the University of Santiago again to give you an update on my project with Backyard Brains. Main Project – Single unit recording from Snail Neurons First mission – Isolate the Neurons As we spoke of a month ago, we are trying to record the individual neurons of the giant pacemaker cells of […]

About me Hi! I am Juan Ferrada, a biochemistry student at the lovely Universidad de Santiago in Chile. That’s me below with my girlfriend Rocia on campus. She is an important part of my project. At the university I work with Dr. Patricio’s Rojas, a longtime colleague of Backyard Brains. Thanks to Patricio, Backyard Brains’ equipment […]

DESCRIPTION Do you consistently think “breathe in, breathe out” or “left, right, left, right” when you’re walking? Unless you’re London Tipton (http://dai.ly/x31iwo0?start=346 to 6:02), you probably don’t. How is this possible? All humans have neural networks called central pattern generators (CPGs) that control rhythmic movements like breathing and walking. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to study […]

After a long and difficult time discovering the buccal ganglia, I recommend using a microscope with at least 6-8 Watt LED bulbs or else you will struggle to find the right area. The buccal ganglia is almost bikini-shaped as shown in the previous log from Ramakrishnan et al. 2014 and is seated directly behind the […]

Upon reading a new paper, I have determined a new location for the electrode (when I get that point in the experiment): the esophageal trunk! Ramakrishnan et al. in 2014 studied the buccal A cluster (BAC) cells that fill up the buccal ganglia, 40 in each. These cells vary in location, size, and the cluster […]

After going through surgery, usually humans can wake up from the anesthesia and function quite normally. Snails are not the same. After this procedure, they need to stay hydrated, but in something less anesthetic and more similar to their blood plasma. This is called a snail saline solution, or Ringer’s solution. It’s essentially 1 liter […]

More clearly explained, inject the snail before it hides behind its trap door anyway. For the past 2 weeks, I’ve had considerable trouble getting the needle into the snail to inject it with the anesthesia solution before the snail locked itself away in its trap door. It’s actually a very fast and strong protection mechanism, […]