Philip Brooks, Addiction Neuroscience at the George Lab UCSD, Week 6
This is my sixth and final week at the George Lab at UC San Diego. It feels like I’m still just getting started and I can’t believe it is coming so quickly to an end. The week ended up being somewhat uneventful, as our dose-response experiment has come to a close and the long-term experiments […]
Philip Brooks, Addiction Neuroscience, George Lab UCSD, Week 5
Monday: I continued to help prepare the cages for the cocaine rats and was lucky enough to see the data collected so far on the rats. I was surprised to find a significant difference in the frequency of self-administration between male and female rats, with females consuming higher levels of cocaine. After looking at the […]
Philip Brooks, Addiction Neuroscience, The George Lab UCSD, Week 4
Monday: I continued my work with the cocaine rats and was given a few more responsibilities, including flushing and priming. Because a few of the rats have died due to illnesses, we have been taking extra precautions to eliminate possible threats, one being flushing, which runs ethanol through the tubes connecting the liquid cocaine to […]
Philip Brooks, Addiction Neuroscience, The George Lab, UCSD, Week 3
This week was quite short regarding work, as I only worked on Tuesday and Wednesday. Since my mentor’s presentation is next week, she dedicated this week entirely to focusing on her thesis, which is something I cannot assist with. Instead, I was assigned to help Sonja Plasil, a post-doc currently working on a study involving […]
Philip Brooks, Addiction Neuroscience at UCSD, Week 2
Monday & Tuesday: We conducted a full experiment run-through starting with vapor administrations. Mice were placed in airtight containers connected to a pipe system that vaporized nicotine liquid and dispensed a premeasured amount into the chambers at set intervals. Post-vapor administration, the mice were moved to a separate room and placed in an “open field,” […]
Philip Brooks, Addiction Neuroscience at UCSD, Week 1
I am working at the George Lab at UC San Diego, a Psychiatry lab focused on drug addiction headed by Dr. Olivier George. I am working under my mentor, Selene Bonnet-Zahedi, a post-grad who will have her PhD within the next 12 months and holds a prominent position in the lab despite her age. I […]
About Me – Philip Brooks
Hello, my name is Philip Brooks and I am a junior at Telluride High School. This summer I will be working alongside Olivier George and others at the George Lab at UCSD, studying the neuroscience of addiction. I’ve been interested in psychology ever since taking a psychology class in my German-speaking school in Austria last […]