Monday, July 15, 2013

The Rat Pack

What is the proper way to begin a new blog post?

That works. First I wanted to apologize for not using any sort of closing salutation on my last post. I wasn't sure what the protocol was for ending blog posts, but after reading a few it seems as though it is a standard thing to do. I'm also very sorry for not posting sooner, anonymous reader, but I've been rather busy lately. I'll admit also that I'm still quite unsure about my blogging abilities and continue to experience a lot more anxiety than I expected about periodical blog posts. I'll trudge onward nonetheless, just for you, anonymous reader.

I've been doing a lot of really cool things (in my opinion) this summer working with the Center for Comparative NeuroImaging! Here are some of the highlights:

Meeting the Father of Modern Stress Research - This may not seem like a huge deal to most, but I was pretty stoked to meet Bruce McEwen, a brilliant neuroendocrinologist from Rockefeller University. When I told my mom about it she wasn't very impressed, but all of us at the lab were in a frenzy to prepare for this (relatively) famous scientist. Pro tip: don't expect your mom to be as excited about nerdy things as you are. At UMass, Dr. McEwen lectured on the molecular mechanisms of stress in the brain and then had lunch with a few of us from the CCNI. Dr. McEwen's research is fascinating as it links actual behavioral/physiological responses in humans to molecular and cellular underpinnings. Though his work primarily deals with stress in the brain, he provided some valuable insights into our research, as stress and mental disorders are deeply intertwined.

Becoming a famous TV star (almost) - A few weeks ago, a crew team from PBS Japan visited the CCNI as part of a documentary on brain studies and neuroimaging. Though the film mostly focused on the work of our director, Jean King, they included a few shots of our laboratory methods. We got the lab all dolled up (and by that I mean we shredded boxes and boxes of old files) as the camera crews rolled in. If you watch PBS Japan anytime soon, maybe you'll be able to spot me in the background or see my name on a lab coat.

Presenting my findings - Also a few weeks ago, I presented my preliminary findings on my study on the motivational effects of nicotine on individuals with ADHD. I'll go into more details in later posts (and I'll even attach some fancy graphs if you're lucky), but basically I used a study design called conditioned place preference to compare the conditioned preferences of SHR rats to nicotine with control SD and WKY rats. I mentioned SHR rats in my last post, but they are a strain of rat typically regarded as the best animal model for ADHD. My findings were unclear, due to a small sample size, so I decided to replicate my study using a larger sample size. I'm currently in the process of repeating my procedure with more rats and I'll update (eventually) when I'm finished.

Those are the major happenings of my internship, so far. The rest of my time has been spent shoving rats into MRI tubes, looking at images of rat brains, watching rats move around a small box, and trying to figure out why my rats aren't doing the things they are supposed to be doing. I imagine this doesn't sound super exciting to the layperson, but I'm having a stellar time doing it. And, if I keep it up and other foreign TV stations get interested, it might just make me famous.

Thanks for reading again, anonymous reader. Cheers!