Sultanah's blog

    This is the first experience with animal research. It was unique as we learn things that are important for science development using animal models. I like hands on skills that I learned during the course starting by handling rat, know how to start off the program in the computer and interpret data we get. I thought that rats or animals in general would find it difficult to learn new things. But surprisingly rats were smart and can learn quickly.    

 

  FR20 was in day 12 and 13,  t he highest schedule you attained   total  Responses were  1547 

  was in day #7, she pressed the lever 436 times

  FR2 was in day # 5.  Responses were 249. Things happened included: pressing lever to get food repeatedly.    FR20 was the highest schedule attained.  Notably, rat was much faster pressing the lever overtime I did schedules. 

  5 minutes 15 10 minutes 24 15 minutes 47 20 minutes 47 25 minutes 51 30 minutes 53

    5 minutes 57 10 minutes 113 15 minutes 123 20 minutes 188 25 minutes 202 30 minutes 202

  Target Weight: 202g Date Weight  Amount fed notes 9/7 224.6 3.0g   9/8 215.2 5.3g   9/9 204.2 7.3g Just below target weight 9/10 201 10g   9/11 204 8g   9/12 203.4 8g   9/13 192.4 11g   9/14 197.3 10g   9/15     Won’t fed 9/16 195 11.4g   9/17 197 13.4g   9/18 194.1 14.8g   9/19 207.8 9.3g Over target weight 9/20 211.2 6.8g   9/21 216.2 6.3g   9/22 216.4 5.2g Still over 9/23 214.3 6.5g   9/24 211 6.9g   9/25 206 9.2g   9/26 211.5 6.5g   9/27 214.1 9.6g   9/28 213.8 8.3g   9/29 207.1 9.8g   9/30 211.2 8g   10/1 207.2 8.4g   10/2 207.6 8.5g   10/3 201.3 9.8g   10/4 206.8 8g   10/5 202.9 9.3g   10/6 198.6 9.8g Free feed

   

  Rat handling. One strategy I used is to put my hand inside and try to hold rat before I open the lid/cover. Problems were mainly is me that I was not exposed to rats before. One solution to handling is to have a demo. Demo handling would allow me to know where to hold and how before handing the actual rat. Maybe starting the training with rats that are known for friendly behavior and easy to work with. This would help me to be more confident and focus on learning other scientific things and not spend time trying to know how to hold rat (which I benefit from learning holding rats).  

    10 minutes a day, and it took 3 days (total of 30 minutes).  I used strategies to train the rat. First, when the rat was near to food box (like walking toward the food source), I opened the lever to treat the rat. Also, any moment the rat was close to the light, I opened the level for more treats for the rat. This was, I think, the rat learns to move closely to the level. I think rat was smart and learned the process easily.  One evidence I can think of is that rat adapted a behavior where every time rat presses the level accidently, the level produces sound which rat knows that sound can get her food.    I think what we learned in the class were similar to what I exposed to in this process. Strategies were similar regarding rats can learn and sometimes they understand what to do in order to get a retreat.  

I took 30 minutes for day 1 and 10 for day 2 (total of 40 minutes). I determined that the rat was magazine  trained when I saw her pressed the lever by her hands (paws). As far as her behavior, I noticed that the rat was looking at the light most of the time and was very active. I think what I noticed were similar to what we covered in the class. For example, the rat was trying to figure things out to reach to a goal.