I’ve always had an interest in psychology, chemistry, and problem
solving. I joined Dr. Jane Flinn’s lab in the fall semester of 2015 shortly
after I had declared my major as Neuroscience- which has given me an
interdisciplinary experience and outlook on different subjects and lab
projects. Within the Flinn lab, I have been helping to study the effects of heavy
metal on cognitive decline and neurodegeneration due to disease such as
Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. I have been both a research assistant and
lead tester within the lab, independently running Novel Object Recognition (NOR)
testing last semester for my OSCAR project. This semester we will be studying
the effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (similar to sports injuries) and Social
Isolation in adolescent mice to determine the effects on neurodegeneration in
the brain. Much like last semester, I will be helping with general lab work
such as handling to socialize the mice, and leading the behavioral test known
as Burrowing for OSCAR.
As last semester’s OSCAR project wraps up and this semester’s begins,
it’s been busy in the lab. Generally, I have been gathering data from NOR which
will be analyzed using statistical software and presented at the SfN conference
with the rest of the Flinn lab data in San Diego this November. I have also
been working behind the scenes learning how to create slides using the Cryostat
for immunohistochemical staining. We are currently waiting for our IACUC, and
our mice will reach 8 weeks of age (adolescence) later this month. At this
point I will be running burrowing and helping out with socialization. I am incredibly
interested in medicine, and my work in Dr. Flinn’s lab has allowed me to get hands
on experience with the research side of this.
