Respiratory epithelium

I work in Thom Park’s lab with African naked mole-rats. These unusual animals have been shown to lack essential neurotransmitters in their trigeminal nerve. I study naked mole-rat postsynaptic activity of the trigeminal nerve in response to multiple stimuli. In my research, I have also done electron microscopy work on an area that is innervated by the trigeminal nerve, the nasal cavity. Hardly any electron microscopy has been done on a naked mole-rat and so I’m doing an anatomical study of their nasal region and their trigeminal nerve. This picture is a scanning electron micrograph of naked mole-rat respiratory epithelium. Ciliated cells and goblet cells on the surface of the respiratory epithelium are shown here, along with a small glob of mucous. The image was taken from samples of naked mole-rat nasal tissue that were fixed and then prepared in the Biological electron microscope lab.