Me and Sierra
My name is Max Cantor and I am doing my internship on addiction and neuroscience in the George Lab at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. In the first week and a half I have read lab reports written by the scientists in the George lab to familiarize myself with the research that the lab has done in the past.
Extracting DNA from bacteria
The most interesting experiment that I read about tested whether high frequency stimulation (HFS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) decreases the re-escalation of heroin self-administration after abstinence in rats. The results of the experiment showed that stimulating the subthalamic nucleus by placing electrodes in the brain decreases either the positive feeling that comes from administering heroin or the negative effects when a rat doesn’t have the drug.
Sierra showing us immunohistochemistry
We have four student interns for the summer, and the lab has been generous in giving us 24 male rats that we will conduct experiments on. So far we have handled the rats (after completing our animal training) to get them used to humans before giving them alcohol to observe how the animals are affected.
Marine Street Beach
During our internships, Will Plantz, Angel Enrique, and I have also had time to explore the San Diego area. We have been to several different beaches with my favorite being a Marine Street. It is a small beach that has a crazy shore break which is fun for body surfing, and has some really amazing rocks overlooking the ocean.
Angel went surfing, for the first time ever, with me the other day. The waves weren’t very consistent or big, but we still had a great time and Angel got used to catching a wave and even stood up a couple times.
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