Another exciting week in La Jolla! This week we got to assist in rat surgeries, which was a wild experience. The surgery was to implant the rats with jugular catheters for drug administration in the operant chambers, which involved putting a tube from their back reaching all the way around into the neck. It was kind of gruesome, and Max had to step out of the room for a bit, but it was very interesting to see. We have been handling rats with these catheters and it was good to see house they are implanted. The rats were knocked out using isoflurane during the surgery and were given ample time to recover, so don’t worry.
We also got to do some more elevated plus maze testing with rats in severe alcohol withdrawal. They stayed in the closed arms almost the entire time, meaning that they were very anxious. Our Pharm 5 rats have not been pressing well in the lab due to our little mess up with the levers, which is unfortunate for the study. Hopefully they’ll begin to bounce back soon so it will not affect the outcome of the study.
Outside of the lab we have continued to surf every night after work. We had pizza on the 
beach with one of our host parents on Wednesday, and we went to a movie as a family last night. We went out to breakfast with Jane Reldan, an old Telluride local who was our Pinhead connection to Lora and Tom’s Rotary club, which was delightful and delicious. I have been taking lots of California sunset photos and I am super psyched with how they are turning out.
I’m leaving on Wednesday, so these next few day will be full of goodbyes, but I am very happy with my experience here. I have had so much fun, learned a lot and met tons of new people.
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