The rats are the rats before the irritability test.
I can’t believe that 6 weeks are already done. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long already.
In the lab we continued running the sessions with the rats. We were able to get our training rats down to the 30 minute session goal. The next step will be to have two levers instead of only one. We also helped with scoring the irritability test. The irritability test is used to test the sensitivity of the rats’ paws by taking small fibers and pressing them against the rat’s paw until it forms a 90 degree angle or the rat lifts its paw. Once the rat lifts its paw, then you go down one fiber strength to make sure they did not respond to that one. If they do respond, you keep going down in fiber strength until the rat does not respond. Once they do not respond, you go back up in strength until you get two responses in a row.
We also presented our final projects to the lab. It is almost the same presentation that we will give for Pinhead. The people at the lab gave us some notes and things to fix before we present it again. I found it to be really helpful.
On our last day, Olivier took Kacy and me out to lunch along with some other people from the lab. It was 
a great way to spend our last day.
When we were not in the lab, we revisited our favorite places and went to places that we had been wanting to see. On July 31, we went to the Open Air Farmers’ Market that we went to every week to get crepes. It became a tradition to go every Sunday and get crepes there. That’s one thing I am definitely going to miss when I go home. We also went to dinner and saw Jason Bourne with Sam. There was a souvenir store that we liked so we went back for some last minute gift shopping.
I had an amazing time in La Jolla and am so thankful that I got this amazing opportunity. I learned so much and met so many amazing people.
The group photo is the people from the lab that we worked with.
The landscape is the view Mt. Soledad after our final day.
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