My oh my, already half way through the internship!
I have had so much fun and I wish this internship could be longer already. Anyways, this week was pretty fun! We learned how to make catheters that will be placed in the back of the rats and run to their jugular vein for nicotine self-administration.
In the nicotine self-administration chambers there are two holes where a rat can poke its nose to get either food or water. There is an additional lever that will administer a dose of nicotine via a tube that connects to the catheter sticking up out of the back of the rat.
Apart from the catheters, we learned how to make the solutions that Marsida uses to preserve brain slices of rats that were sacrificed to analyze how nicotine affects certain neuronal pathways. The brain slices are put in a microscope and Marsida places a cathode into tiny little neurons to record how they were affected by the rat’s addiction. The measurements taken by the cathode are so precise that Marsida doesn’t allow cellphones in the room where they are taken.
We also handled young rats that have just been introduced to the lab. We handle them to calm them and get them used to human contact as they will be handled every day for basically the rest of their lives.
This was our last week living in Pacific Beach and we will be moving to Rancho Santa Fe on Sunday. In our downtime we surf and have recently done a pretty decent amount of slacklining as well. We eat at a new restaurant basically every day and normally grab ice cream or frozen yogurt afterwards (Telluride needs a frozen yogurt shop).
Today (Friday), Scripps was on holiday so Ella and I went to the San Diego Zoo which is gigantic; it took us seven hours to see all the exhibits. Tomorrow we will be celebrating the 4th of July on the beach, apparently we are exactly where you want to be for this holiday. San Diego is amazing and it has “rained” twice since we got here. The temperature is generally the same every day but the water is warming which is very pleasant. I’m definitely excited to move into our new home with Betsy, Turner and Pilar, whom I will tell you more about next week when I get to know them better.
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