Stefania Bartoletti

Background

About Stefania Bartoletti

In the Experimental Electroencephalography and Neurophysiology laboratory, under the supervision of my tutor Prof. Giulia Curia, I improved my skills working on the Pilocarpine model of temporal lobe epilepsy in adult rats; in particular, I gained experience in rat handling, drug administration (by i.p. and s.c.), and classification of epileptic seizures according to Racine’s scale. I have also learned how to perform stereotaxic surgeries on anaesthetized rats (epileptic and Näive) to implant epidural and depth electrodes for in vivo EEG recordings, to implant guide cannulas for intracerebral injections, and to inject lesioning agents, neural stem cells, extracellular matrix, growth factors, and a combination of them. I contributed to the in-house production of guide cannulas, infusion needles and depth electrodes for EEG recordings. I developed good skills in setting up the two EEG recording systems (ADInstruments and Neuralynx), connecting implanted rats, and collecting data for analysis. Moreover, I acquired some basic knowledge in the analysis of EEG traces. I acquired competence in rat intracardiac perfusion, brain extraction and slicing, histological staining, immunohistochemistry/immunofluorescence experiments, and analysis at the microscope. Moreover, I learned how to maintain in culture neural stem cells provided by our partner. In 2022, I have set up a neurosurgery procedure for the brain implantation of custom-made ultra-flexible probes.