Week 9

Welcome to week 9! I can’t believe there’s only one week left.

I came into lab Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as I usually do. However, this week was especially eventful and stressful (at least for me).

Monday was my first time actually working with mice. Bryce needed help weighing and restraining them, so he taught me how to. The mice are housed in a different building, so, after making our way over, we put on our PPE (personal protective equipment). You need to wear a mask, gloves, and a robe of sorts before handling the mice. The mice are housed based on cohort (or litter) with each one having their own cage. Within each cohort there are about three or four mice. Each litter has a mouse in the control, stress immediate, and stress recovery groups. There is a sharpie mark on their tail indicating which is which. Our task for the day was to weigh and restrain the stress immediate mice.

We separated them from the other mice and placed them in cages that could be transported between rooms. First, we weighed the mice. You pick them up by the base of their tail and place them on a scale. We keep track of their weight in order to prove the validity of using restraint as a stressor. Under periods of chronic stress, the animals should lose weight. Second, we restrained the mice. This is the part that I was most worried about as I didn’t know if the mice would struggle or show any signs of distress. That would’ve been sad to see. However, the rats experience no pain and go into the restraints relatively easily. You simply place their heads near the opening and scoop them into the mesh wire cage. You then close off the end, making sure not to pinch their tails. The mice don’t struggle and are put under no unnecessary stress.

Wednesday I worked a lot on my PowerPoint as I needed to meet with Dr. Conrad that day to go over it. Bryce reviewed it in the morning and sent me some pictures that would be helpful to include. After completing it to the best of my ability (I still needed to discuss the analysis of the graphs that I had created with Bryce), I went to meet with Dr. Conrad. I wasn’t as ready as I should’ve been, but she was very kind and very helpful, pointing out everything that I should work on before presenting it in lab meeting.

Today is Friday and I’m going to be presenting in little less than an hour. It’s going to be structured much like the talks that the undergraduate students gave in previous meetings. I’m going to present for around ten minutes, and the rest of the time will be used for comments. Hopefully this will help me be really prepared for the final presentation.

Thanks for following along!