The Mouse Phenome Database (MPD) provides access to primary experimental trait data, genotypic variation, protocols and analysis tools for mouse genetic studies. Data are contributed by investigators worldwide and represent a broad scope of phenotyping endpoints and disease-related traits in naïve mice and those exposed to drugs, environmental agents or other treatments. MPD ensures rigorous curation of phenotype data and supporting documentation using relevant ontologies and controlled vocabularies. As a repository of curated and integrated data, MPD provides a means to access/re-use baseline data, as well as allows users to identify sensitized backgrounds for making new mouse models with genome editing technologies, analyze trait co-inheritance, benchmark assays in their own laboratories, and many other research applications. MPD’s primary source of funding is NIDA. For this reason, a majority of MPD data is neuro- and behavior-related.

This lecture provides an introduction to optogenetics, a biological technique to control the activity of neurons or other cell types with light.

This primer on optogenetics primer discusses how to manipulate neuronal populations with light at millisecond resolution and offers possible applications such as curing the blind and "playing the piano" with cortical neurons.

This lecture gives an introduction to the types of glial cells, homeostasis (influence of cerebral blood flow and influence on neurons), insulation and protection of axons (myelin sheath; nodes of Ranvier), microglia and reactions of the CNS to injury.