Over the summer, I was part of the SURF program in Neuroscience. I continued working in the same lab I had been working in over the past two years expect now I was given a project that was my own. Initially, I was supposed to work on a much more thorough project that dealt with chronic stress and its effects on Midline Thalamus. This project required doing a lot more rat surgeries and with the short amount of time that I had for SURF, it was not possible to do both the surgeries and get results for the poster.
The Project
The project dealt with looking at how acute stress affects the functioning of the Paraventricular Thalamus (PVT) and the Nucleus Reuniens (RE), two regions of the Midline Thalamus that are activated by stress. The aim was to try to see which type of cell, either the inhibitory or excitatory, in the Pre-Frontal Cortex was receiving the majority of the projections from the PVT and RE. In order to look at the functioning of these regions, a Biotinylated Dextran Amine (BDA) tracer was injected into 7 adult male rats. 4 rats were injected in the RE and 3 in the PVT. The rats were allowed to incubate for one week and then were perfused and their brains were taken to run immunohistochemistry on. Immunohistochemistry showed the projections from the areas to the inhibitory and excitatory cells.
My Learning
In the coming year, I hope to continue working on this project and doing more work with behavior testing and animal work in general.
The Project
The project dealt with looking at how acute stress affects the functioning of the Paraventricular Thalamus (PVT) and the Nucleus Reuniens (RE), two regions of the Midline Thalamus that are activated by stress. The aim was to try to see which type of cell, either the inhibitory or excitatory, in the Pre-Frontal Cortex was receiving the majority of the projections from the PVT and RE. In order to look at the functioning of these regions, a Biotinylated Dextran Amine (BDA) tracer was injected into 7 adult male rats. 4 rats were injected in the RE and 3 in the PVT. The rats were allowed to incubate for one week and then were perfused and their brains were taken to run immunohistochemistry on. Immunohistochemistry showed the projections from the areas to the inhibitory and excitatory cells.
My Learning
- Research as a career path? I never would have thought that I would consider research a career path for me but after this summer, I think I can say I would not mind doing research for the rest of my life. I liked waking up and going to work every morning and I genuinely never sat at working longing to come home at the end of the day. The more I worked there and the more responsibilities I got, the more engaged I became.
- Stick with it. I had a lot of terrible results this summer. Nothing just seemed to work. I ran so many immunohistochemistry that eventually I became excited to tediously count 60+ cells per image. Regardless of my results not fully working out, I had the chance to learn a lot of new techniques. I got a lot more hands-on experience in the lab and I was left to do things independently. I took pride in the confidence that others had in me to finish a task perfectly. Without this opportunity, I would never have been able to do as much around the lab as I probably will in the coming year.
In the coming year, I hope to continue working on this project and doing more work with behavior testing and animal work in general.