Week 7

Welcome back!

Week 7 was very exciting! Firstly, our data from the non-divided cages on Day 1 looks just as promising as that from Day 2 and mirrors some significant patterns that seem to show the enrichment devices are actually functioning as intended. 

Rot-A-Rod Machine

Second, BALB/c mice are not very intelligent. We completed three days of Rot-A-Rod testing with them this week to very poor results from all groups leading us to believe that this strain of mice simply doesn’t perform as well as others in this type of cognitive test. So what is a Rot-A-Rod test? The Rot-A-Rod performance test is a performance test based on a rotating rod with forced motor activity being applied, usually by a rodent. The test measures parameters such as riding time (seconds) or endurance. Some of the functions of the test include evaluating balance, grip strength and motor coordination of the subjects; especially in testing the effect of experimental drugs or after traumatic brain injury. Although the test didn’t achieve much, in terms of our devices, they don’t seem to have hurt performance on the test or help it significantly.  The test itself was very interesting to run and I had a lot of fun learning how to do it! 

And then it was back to video, for the rest of the week, I started collecting data from the first few clips of Day 7 data!

Thanks!

Tasha

Week 6

Enjoy!

Week 6 was a little bit shorter because of Spring Break but we made some interesting developments this week. First, I finished collecting all the data from Day 1 videos, and I plan on analyzing the data for the Non-Divided cages early next week. The data I have taken a look at so far seem to almost mirror the patterns displayed in the Day 2 data, which is a promising sign. 

This week Bret and I completed an ELISA, which is an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) a common laboratory technique which is used to measure the concentration of an analyte (usually antibodies or antigens) in solution. While I watched during the plates we ran last week, this week I ran the control plate while Bret ran the Antibody plate, both to good results. 

Lab meeting this week gave Bret and I a new direction to move in with our mice. As our mice have been held for a few months now, without any injury or adverse conditions, we decided to see if there were any other potential advantages or disadvantages in being housed with the enrichment device in place for a longer period of time in divided cages 2, 4 and 6. To do this, we plan on running a Rot-A-Rod test sometime next week. I will keep you posted on the outcomes of Day 1 data and the Rot-A-Rod data next time!

Thanks for reading!

Tasha

Week 5

Welcome!

Week 5 was much like week 4 in terms of the work I was doing. I had completed collecting and analyzing all of the Day 2 data for cages 1, 3 and 5 (the cages without the device) and this week I started working on collecting data from the video for Day 1 in cages 1, 3 and 5. By this point I feel very comfortable watching the videos and I am starting to enjoy watching the mice do their thing all day. Although this cage was like the other Non-Divided cages in most ways, one particular mouse had a very peculiar aberrant behavior that was interesting to watch and largely inexplicable based on readings that I did after seeing this. One mouse, coincidentally the dominant one in the cage would start in the middle of the cage, drag himself over to the corner of the cage by his own tail and then pull himself back into the center of the cage while spinning in circles and biting his own tail. Although I have no idea why this mouse was acting this was, our lab definitely got a laugh out of it. Bret made the decision to keep that mouse in the study, despite his odd, unnatural behavior, to determine if aberrant behavior could be reduced by the enrichment devices we were testing. 

While most of my work this week was more of the same, our Thursday Lab meeting proved to be very engaging. After reading a published paper in a prestigious journal, the team proceeded to more or less rip the paper and its credibility to shreds. Not to be horrible, but to teach us the importance of having clean, clear, reproducible work and clear study designs that were scientific. This was interesting and hilarious and taught me a lot about how to proceed with research in a systematic and organized way to achieve maximum success from your project. 

This week I also learned how to cut and mount 0.10 mm thick slices of fresh frozen rat brain to slides for viewing, testing and further staining. This process was more involved than I expected it to be, but I had a great time learning how to do this technique and really enjoyed the process! I will be cutting more brains in the future :)

Have a great week! Thanks!

Tasha

Week 4

Hello everyone!

During this week I started working independently to analyze footage on my own. It took me a few weeks to get to this point because of the subjective nature of the scoring. Although our scoring chart is one taken and improved upon from other publications, the scoring itself is extremely subjective as one person could easily “see” something that wasn’t as clear cut as they believed and vice versa. Because of this, I had spent the last few weeks scoring at the same time as Bret and comparing our scoring until the differences between our data were marginal. This week was definitely challenging. Hours of video has been difficult to get through while watching it with someone else, but being attentive every second for hours on end was difficult and every instance that was missed could be a behavior that went unrecorded. I ended up watching and rewinding and rewatching large sections of video during this week until I felt more comfortable with my own judgement. 

Common Enrichment Device

I also read a little bit more about common enrichment devices available on the market today and compared their functionality to our prototype. Often the most common types of enrichment are igloos, which are supposed to provide the mice with some semblance of their own space, the major premise behind our device, but can become quite dangerous and cause more aggression as they become a territory to have disputes over and the raised perch can serve as a launching point for mice to jump on others (a behavior of posturing – pouncing). The device we are proposing is the only one like it currently and serves many different purposes for the mice. Mice are social animals and do much better when housed with other animals than in isolation, but are also used to having some space to burrow in and spend time away from other mice. Because of the open caging designs used today, most cages hold five animals and do not allow for any personal space. Our device tries to mimic the natural burrowing of the mice without closing them off from each other. They are also cost efficient, durable, and disposable. All factors that would be important in the potential mass production of these. 

Thanks for reading!

Tasha