Exposure
My lab works on a ton of different projects that all involve behavioral tests with mice. The past couple of weeks, we've been wrapped up in working on getting data for a NIH grant to study the behavioral effects of certain antipsychotics and discover their signal transduction pathways using schizophrenia mice models.
The behavioral test i worked with was the PPI (Prepulse Inhibition test). I've already started explaining what PPI is in my first blog post. Basically, you compare the startle response to an auditory stimulus with and without a stimulus before...the prepulse. Usually, the startle response is lower if a prepulse precedes the actual stimulus. Schizophrenics typically exhibit deficient PPI....their startle response is unaffected by a prepulse. PPI is a way to test pre-attention in a lab setting. Individuals with defiicient PPI have difficulty filtering out unnecessary information in their surroundings...one of the symptoms of schizophrenia. It's particularly useful to use PPI to study antipsychotics because drugs that can restore deficient PPI to normal PPI could potentialy be effective schizphrenia drugs.
To perform the test, we used a San Diego Instruments startle response system. 
They look like small refrigerators for the mice to chill out in. It's in here that the mice hear the auditory stimulus and the platform they are standing on has a high-tech sensor that can measure the amount of startle. Almost everything is run by a computer, which makes it a simple enough test to perform. We tested for PPI in both postive and negative control groups...some received the vehicle (water) while others received typical and atypical antipsychotics that are commonly prescribed in schizophrenice patients. The data was eventually compiled in a bar graph and we cheered when the postive control antipsychotic did what it was supposed to do....restore the PPI of the pharmacological schizophrenia models and asked quizzical questions when unexpected things came up.
PPI is only one of the many mouse behavioral tests that my lab has the capability and technology to perform. For the rest of the program, i will be working a little bit more with PPI, but also learning how to work some of the different tests. It's not really a research project, more like an exposure to many different things, which i think is so much better. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated!
i plan on finding out what this machine does sometime.
Random ramblings: Going back the NIH grant, the past 3 weeks have gotten me acquainted with the atmosphere of a lab under a deadline...extremely hectic at times. Here's a cause for celebration...we're completely moved out from the CARL building and i am a pro at pushing carts around campus. I also really enjoy the five o'clock church bell concert everyday.
Finally, i think andy roddick deserves a shoutout for his wimbledon performance. =)
