This essay was written by Lower Sixth Form student Shrey Bijlani as an Original Research in Science (ORIS) project. It was the winning submission in the STEM category of the 2023 ILA/ ORIS award. The following provides a short abstract of the full report:
The N13 potential is a response in the spinal cord in humans that is thought to reflect post-synaptic activation of neurons. Recordings from rats show the N13 potential has an analogous N1 potential in the rat and might be useful for developing new drugs, however the precise location this potential originates from remains uncorroborated. Electrophysiological experiments were performed to analyse this, and subsequently, tissue was extracted from rats and stained accordingly. The results show that the probe was positioned approximately 1.2mm deep and 0.5mm laterally with the tip of the probe ending in lamina V. When compared to electrophysiological data, this confirms that the origin of the N13 potential is located within lamina V, supporting the conclusion that the initial response was mediated here.
To view Shrey’s full report, follow this link below:
The Unchained Library 