The second week of my internship was very interesting as I had the opportunity to do work that was quite different from the molecular work I did last week. Having completed two courses regarding humane animal experimentation and animal handling, I was able to touch and move rats used in TSRI addiction research. For the most part the rats weren’t too difficult to pick up and move from their housing cages to their experimentation cages, but I did end up receiving a few little scratches from the extra squirmy, anxious withdrawing rats.
For the most part the rats that I handled all week were being used for alcohol addiction research. These rats are much more difficult to handle than those dependent on oxycodone simply because the withdrawal experience leaves them far more anxious and wired. The alcohol research consists of rats being put into special cages in which their are two levers, one dispenses water when pressed and the other dispenses alcohol. It is somewhat hard to get them dependent on alcohol in this way because of the bad taste, and there is no chance of adding sugar or anything else to the alcohol solution as this would add favor to drinking alcohol beyond simply the drug that it contains and therefor break the control of the experiment. To combat the difficulty of getting the rats dependent researchers at scripps use alcohol vapor chambers. These are cages that the rats will spend almost all of their time in that can release vapor containing ethanol. The ethanol is not administered to them without consent though because they must poke a button with their nose to get the ethanol to be released. This makes the model much more similar to humans who are deliberately choosing to go to the bar or liquor store, and not having it forced upon them in any way. To reduce potential for extreme harm for the rats the vapor contains low concentration of ethanol and there is a limited period of the day in which the alcohol will even be accessible to them. This system that is built into their housing makes it so that when they are run in the alcohol testing cages they drink a lot of alcohol due to building a dependence. The number of presses on the alcohol lever is compared to the number of presses on the water level to gage the severity of cravings and addiction, and this data is also compared to water lever presses of rats that are completely naive to alcohol.
My role in this research is relatively small but still important. It is generally my job to help lab technicians take rats in and out of alcohol testing chambers, refile syringes connected to the lever system for both alcohol and water, and cleaning cages between rats being run in the testing chambers. The cages need to be fresh for each rat being run so that there is no discomfort such as smelling another rats waste that may influence them to use the drug more. Fortunately the rats drink the alcohol and it is not administered to them via a catheter when they press the lever for alcohol. This is done for rats being tested for nicotine and oxycodone due to the foul taste of both. This is also done for rats being tested for substances that cannot be absorbed through the digestive track. The lack of the catheter makes it so that when I take rats in and out of cages I do not need to screw and unscrew a tube from their back. The less the rat has to be handled and the less that the rat has to go through while being handled minimizes their stress. This is good for me because it makes them squirm less and as a result scratch me less often, but it is also crucial for the research so that they do not drink/use more due to a heightening of already intense withdrawal induced anxiety. Research with these alcohol administration cages can go on for a long time for rats, there is even one set of rats that is more than two years old! However, there are many of them sacrificed much younger than this so that their brains can be examined by those working in the molecular side of TSRI’s addiction work. When rats have had enough time living in vapor chambers to become dependent they are switched to housing that they cannot get drunk from simply breathing in. They also do not lose dependence to alcohol once they are removed from vapor chamber housing because they still have access to drinkable alcohol at least a few times a week. Some rats are run in lever pressing cages five days a week, others only three, and others that I do not work with that are using different substances can be run every single day. Featured in one of my images is a rat similar to the ones used as scripps, but TSRI has a policy which requires that no pictures be taken of the rats so I was not able to show a rat that I have actually worked with. The other image is a diagram of the vapor chambers that are used in our lab.
Outside of the lab this week I was able to explore a bit more of San Diego and had the chance to go to the San Diego Zoo yesterday (Saturday). It was somewhat mind blowing to see such a huge zoo so close to such a giant urban area. The zoo has an amazingly diverse collection of animals from all over the world, and habitats holding only a few animals can take nearly ten minutes to walk in a circle around. This made me feel somewhat better about supporting such an inhumane business because at least it was a little bit more human than a lot of zoos tend to be. This being said my fun was definitely tainted a little bit when looking at exhibits like the one housing the polar bears, but all in all it was still a fun experience that I could not have had at home.
I’m looking forward to this next week at work because I now of some basic skills down both in the molecular and behavioral research departments, so I should now be able to be more helpful to the people I am working with and learn a bit more about addiction study than I was able to in the last two weeks. It would be exciting to get to know things a bit better on the chemical side, but this might not be able to happen because there is so much grunt work involved in a lot of the behavioral studies. This is where interns are very useful because we are able to do less pleasant things that technicians, postdocs, and PhD students would normally have to do, freeing them up to do the important and difficult data collection and analyzation. Ultimately it is much more rewarding to feel like I am able to contribute more to the collective effort with what I do than to be doing things that are a bit more exciting. Things are also great because everyone is very friendly in the lab, and the postdocs who supervise the lab want myself and the other interns to learn as much as possible while still being as helpful as possible. Things are starting out great and heading towards only getting better!
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