Simple Tasks for Lab Mice

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MDhomieG

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So I'm on my last couple weeks at my summer lab, and interestingly the PI came up to me yesterday and said that they had a couple of lab mice that were to be sacrificed(euthanized) and asked me if I wanted to do anything with them. Obviously since I m leaving soon, I can't really do much, but one of the post docs suggested doing some simple cognitive tasks for the mice, and I guess getting a feel for behavioral research would be really interesting. Any suggestions? Anyone else worked with lab mice before? Anyone know of any simple and quick cognitive tests that are interesting to see before these I have to say goodbye to these mice? Keep in mind that I m looking for something quick and not really anything that would involve publishing anything at this point: just trying to put opportunities to good use.

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Let them make love them crank the CO2.
 
Let them make love them crank the CO2.

lmao,

You know... I read this study about how they would test different animals to see their ability to lie. It requires higher level thinking to lie, but one of my professors told me they initially did this study with mice. Not sure how it worked, but it's interesting nonetheless.

You should check on google to search for interesting experiments.
 
I do a lot of mouse behavioral work in my lab job, and we use water mazes. Those take a while to build, but all you need for behavior is a stimulus (maybe a light or sound emitter?), a decision for them to make, and a reward for a correct decision. Just type "mouse behavior" into PubMed and see what comes up.
 
do brain surgery on them.

or cut their spinal cord at the right location to see if their reflexes are affected.

or blind them and try to have them complete the water maze task via their sense of smell.

am i sick?
 
do brain surgery on them.

or cut their spinal cord at the right location to see if their reflexes are affected.

or blind them and try to have them complete the water maze task via their sense of smell.

am i sick?

Good luck getting IACUC approval.
 
Let them make love them crank the CO2.

Is it bad that I called the euthanasia room (there was a room where you could put cages and the facility staff would gas the buggers) at my grad school's animal facility "mousechwitz?" Generally when I gassed mice, I had too many other things to do than watch their death throws though.

/Yes, animal research requires a certain amount of desensitization, however no amount of desensitization should require a researcher to give up respect for the little buggers who's short lives are in their hands.
 
Is it bad that I called the euthanasia room (there was a room where you could put cages and the facility staff would gas the buggers) at my grad school's animal facility "mousechwitz?" Generally when I gassed mice, I had too many other things to do than watch their death throws though.

/Yes, animal research requires a certain amount of desensitization, however no amount of desensitization should require a researcher to give up respect for the little buggers who's short lives are in their hands.

At least with the larger mice you can walk away while they're in their final throws. Ever get the pleasure of having to "dispose" of a baby?

But yeah, you get sensitized real quick.
 
At least with the larger mice you can walk away while they're in their final throws. Ever get the pleasure of having to "dispose" of a baby?

But yeah, you get sensitized real quick.

Define "dispose of babies?" Like, "Oh, I don't get what these new little bags of squirming meat in my cage is... oh they taste like chicken" with the associated pleasure of seeing 5-6 little headless or bodiless babies, sometimes with blood on the side of the cage, or killing them myself. Since we were backcrossing our generations, we ended up killing all of the females once we they were a little less than a month old and we could sex them. What's also fun is watching one of the PIs for the project sit there and remove the spleens from living mice we used to grow babesia in so we could get a consistent infection.


Probably the worse thing I've seen was ended up catching a mouse in someone else's cage where the poor mouse ended up getting his head stuck through the grates, leaving him to literally hang to death.
 
Define "dispose of babies?" Like, "Oh, I don't get what these new little bags of squirming meat in my cage is... oh they taste like chicken" with the associated pleasure of seeing 5-6 little headless or bodiless babies, sometimes with blood on the side of the cage, or killing them myself. Since we were backcrossing our generations, we ended up killing all of the females once we they were a little less than a month old and we could sex them. What's also fun is watching one of the PIs for the project sit there and remove the spleens from living mice we used to grow babesia in so we could get a consistent infection.


Probably the worse thing I've seen was ended up catching a mouse in someone else's cage where the poor mouse ended up getting his head stuck through the grates, leaving him to literally hang to death.

I'm referring to the razor blade decapitations. But yeah that disgusting cage things that happen are really the worst part. Nothing more jolting than opening a cage to go about your business, only to find some form of depravity waiting in there for you.

Glad those days are over.
 
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Uhh, I work in a physiology lab... we don't even get to gas our mice because it changes the cells that we're studying. Cervical dislocation while they're fully conscious is the only way to do it :( That took a while to get used to, and it's still a dreaded part of the day.
 
Good luck getting IACUC approval.

Sadly, two of the above were actually approved and are variations of existing experiments. I participated in a variation of one of them, which is not as cruel as it sounds, and is actually fascinating.
 
Uhh, I work in a physiology lab... we don't even get to gas our mice because it changes the cells that we're studying. Cervical dislocation while they're fully conscious is the only way to do it :( That took a while to get used to, and it's still a dreaded part of the day.

That popping sound is pretty disgusting.
 
This thread is re-igniting my disdain for research.
 
I'm referring to the razor blade decapitations. But yeah that disgusting cage things that happen are really the worst part. Nothing more jolting than opening a cage to go about your business, only to find some form of depravity waiting in there for you.

Glad those days are over.

Nope... didn't have to decapitate mice. For my part, I was doing the genotyping and monitoring the infection level, so the major things to the mice I did was getting ear clipping for DNA, collecting blood MWF from the tail, breeding, and basic colony management.
 
Sadly, two of the above were actually approved and are variations of existing experiments. I participated in a variation of one of them, which is not as cruel as it sounds, and is actually fascinating.

Opps, sorry. I thought you meant to do it for just ****s and giggles.
 
I do a lot of mouse behavioral work in my lab job, and we use water mazes. Those take a while to build, but all you need for behavior is a stimulus (maybe a light or sound emitter?), a decision for them to make, and a reward for a correct decision. Just type "mouse behavior" into PubMed and see what comes up.

I believe you are referencing the Morris water maze, as that is the most common. Usually the maze is used for acquisition and reversal (subsequent to acquisition) or sometimes, depending on the particular experiment (perhaps studying lesions in the PFC) acquisition and retention (subsequent to acquisition). These are not terribly difficult, but the water maze is probably a bitch to set up (haven't done it personally). I think an open field test would be an easy experiment to conduct. Search it in pubmed. You can study different parameters, such as locomotor activity, time spent in different areas, etc.
 
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Opps, sorry. I thought you meant to do it for just ****s and giggles.

It's cool. Have you heard of decortication? In neuro class we covered an experiment where a large mammal's cortex was COMPLETELY REMOVED :eek: and then the spinal cord, reflexes, and such were tested. I have links if anybody cares lol.
 
Set them free

I was tempted to take some of the off spring home as pets. Lab mice are cleaner than store bought and some of the inbred strains are very easy to handle.
 
I believe you are referencing the Morris water maze, as that is the most common. Usually the maze is used for acquisition and reversal (subsequent to acquisition) or sometimes, depending on the particular experiment (perhaps studying lesions in the PFC) acquisition and retention (subsequent to acquisition). These are not terribly difficult, but the water maze is probably a bitch to set up (haven't done it personally). I think an open field test would be an easy experiment to conduct. Search it in pubmed. You can study different parameters, such as locomotor activity, time spent in different areas, etc.

I wanted to emphasize the bolded part for the OP, which was not included in my original post :oops:
 
I was tempted to take some of the off spring home as pets. Lab mice are cleaner than store bought and some of the inbred strains are very easy to handle.

At most places, if you work with an animal species in the vivarium you aren't supposed to have the same species as pets at home (to prevent spreading disease). Though many people don't really follow it.


I had a pair of pet mice and I used to sell their pups on craigslist as feeder mice, paid for all their food and toys:D
 
Make them reenact your favorite episode of "Pinky and the Brain"
This x 1000

Or - (and this is funnier in frogs)
reverse the tectal plates and watch them try to navigate a maze:smuggrin:
* in this case, the frogs would try to eat flies with their tongues but miss completely *
 
At most places, if you work with an animal species in the vivarium you aren't supposed to have the same species as pets at home (to prevent spreading disease). Though many people don't really follow it.


I had a pair of pet mice and I used to sell their pups on craigslist as feeder mice, paid for all their food and toys:D
I want a rat and name him Steve McQueen
 
What strain of mice are you working with? Do you have much dissection experience?

If your mice are B6's and old, I would say dissect them and check out their hearts. They are predisposed to heart disease and get seriously fibrotic.
 
How do you kill them? We generally use cervical dislocation.
 
So I'm on my last couple weeks at my summer lab, and interestingly the PI came up to me yesterday and said that they had a couple of lab mice that were to be sacrificed(euthanized) and asked me if I wanted to do anything with them. Obviously since I m leaving soon, I can't really do much, but one of the post docs suggested doing some simple cognitive tasks for the mice, and I guess getting a feel for behavioral research would be really interesting. Any suggestions? Anyone else worked with lab mice before? Anyone know of any simple and quick cognitive tests that are interesting to see before these I have to say goodbye to these mice? Keep in mind that I m looking for something quick and not really anything that would involve publishing anything at this point: just trying to put opportunities to good use.
I've been in a psychoneuroimmunology lab for the past two years. So I've been involved in a lot of behavioral studies. First of all, do you have a control group and treatment group? Or do you want to do behavioral tests just to get a feel for them before euthanizing the mice?

Anyways, for simple sickness behavior tests you can check locomotor behavior, where you video tape mice from either a top-down view or from the side to assess distance traveled and how many times they reared up on hind legs, or social behavior, where you place a juvenile mouse in the same cage as a control/treatment mouse and time how long your animal sniffs/investigates the new juvenile. For cognitive stuff, the one I'm most familiar with is the Morris water maze. It tests for hippocampal-dependent spatial learning and memory. However, if you're doing these tests for fun and not to actually use them in studies, I wouldn't recommend the water maze. It takes too long to set up and conduct if you're never going to use the data.

Look up protocols for other behavior tests on Nature Protocols. It's got the methods for practically everything.
 
I do a lot of mouse behavioral work in my lab job, and we use water mazes. Those take a while to build, but all you need for behavior is a stimulus (maybe a light or sound emitter?), a decision for them to make, and a reward for a correct decision. Just type "mouse behavior" into PubMed and see what comes up.

I believe you are referencing the Morris water maze, as that is the most common. Usually the maze is used for acquisition and reversal (subsequent to acquisition) or sometimes, depending on the particular experiment (perhaps studying lesions in the PFC) acquisition and retention (subsequent to acquisition). These are not terribly difficult, but the water maze is probably a bitch to set up (haven't done it personally). I think an open field test would be an easy experiment to conduct. Search it in pubmed. You can study different parameters, such as locomotor activity, time spent in different areas, etc.
I don't think Daisy is referring to the MWM. But I absolutely agree that the MWM is a pain to set up (and conduct). It takes so much time! :smuggrin:
 
I've been in a psychoneuroimmunology lab for the past two years. So I've been involved in a lot of behavioral studies.

I've got a job opening in the pharmacopsychoneuroimmunobiomedical field if you're interested.
 
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