A method for reducing animal use whilst maintaining statistical power in electrophysiological recordings from rodent nerves

Rich, Laura R.; Patrick, Jonathan A.; Hamner, Margaret A.; Ransom, Bruce R.; Brown, Angus M.

Abstract

The stimulus evoked compound action potential, recorded from ex vivo nerve trunks such as the rodent optic and sciatic nerve, is a popular model system used to study aspects of nervous system metabolism. This includes (1) the role of glycogen in supporting axon conduction, (2) the injury mechanisms resulting from metabolic insults, and (3) to test putative benefits of clinically relevant neuroprotective strategies. We demonstrate the benefit of simultaneously recording from pairs of nerves in the same superfusion chamber compared with conventional recordings from single nerves. Experiments carried out on mouse optic and sciatic nerves demonstrate that our new recording configuration decreased the relative standard deviation from samples when compared with recordings from an equivalent number of individually recorded nerves. The new method reduces the number of animals required to produce equivalent Power compared with the existing method, where single nerves are used. Adopting this method leads to increased experimental efficiency and productivity. We demonstrate that reduced animal use and increased Power can be achieved by recording from pairs of rodent nerve trunks simultaneously.

Citation

Rich, L. R., Patrick, J. A., Hamner, M. A., Ransom, B. R., & Brown, A. M. (2020). A method for reducing animal use whilst maintaining statistical power in electrophysiological recordings from rodent nerves. Heliyon, 6(6), Article e04143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04143

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 2, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jun 6, 2020
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Jun 17, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 17, 2020
• Journal: Heliyon
• Electronic ISSN: 2405-8440
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 6
• Issue: 6
• Article Number: e04143
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04143
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4597280
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844020309877
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: A method for reducing animal use whilst maintaining statistical power in electrophysiological recordings from rodent nerves; Journal Title: Heliyon; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04143; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd.