Hello again! Summer has flown by and in just one week we will be starting classes again.  As for the research I have been doing in Dr. Cavigelli’s lab, everything has been running smoothly! This past week we collected fecal samples (yay) for our Asthma-Anxiety project.  From these samples we will be able to determine cortisol levels during various times of the day. We also have continued running behavioral testing such as the Novel Social and Novel Physical tests. (Sarah’s first post)

To further explain, in the novel social test, an arena is set up with two cages placed inside.  One cage is empty while the other cage has a novel animal (a mouse that the subject being tested has not been housed with) in it.  The mouse and a tube that was housed with it is placed into the arena.  For the next five minutes, we code the mouse’s behavior including latency to the empty cage and the novel animal cage. In the novel physical test, the mouse and its tube are placed into an arena with three other novel tubes and toys.  Latency to a novel object, the number of times touching a novel item, crawling through and on top various toys are all recorded.

These tests are used to determine the social inhibition of each mouse and their reactions to new environments.  A more introverted mouse will tend to stay in his own tube, rarely exploring the other toys in the arena, whereas, a more extroverted mouse will be willing to explore the other toys and animal.

We are concluding testing with this wave of mice and will begin to analyze the data collected.  Another project I will commence, possibly for part of my honors thesis, will be examining lung samples while measuring the thickness of collagen present.