The Frog Dissection Home Page

This manual was created to help students with the first laboratory exercise in the Quantitative Physiology: Cells and Tissues course (also known as 6.021J/2.791J/HST545). It should be studied before attending the lab on the assigned day.

General precautions

• You should wear rubber gloves if you handle the animals.
• Use the bluntest instrument that will accomplish the job. Finer instruments often cause unwanted damage, rupture blood vessels, etc.
• Cut parallel to the nerve. It is elastic but is easily cut if approached perpendicularly.
• Never close the jaws of the scissors without visual confirmation that the nerve will not be cut.
• Keep the nerve wet with Ringer's solution (not with blood) at all times during the dissection.
• At no time should the nerve be picked up or pinched with forceps.
• Handling should always be done by very gentle lifting the nerve on a blunt dissection instrument or by gently pulling on an attached thread.
• Excessive stretching will destroy conduction of action potentials in the nerve fibers - do not stretch the nerve.

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Other Resources

• The Interactive Frog Dissection
• The Whole Frog Project's Virtual Frog Dissection Kit