Towards the end of the internship it is time to work at my final report real hard. I am getting close to the end. I have most stuff written down, but there is still a lot to do. I have to rewrite a couple of sections, put the references to the literature in the right place and hopefully we will be able to gather some more preliminary data from our recordings in the labyrinthectomized mice. After the incident in which our veterinary "friends" of the animal department euthanised our mice after surgery because they "looked like they weren't alright" we had a talk with them. We explained they were supposed to look like that, they are in no pain, only disoriented because we messed with the vestibular apparatus. And besides they adapt in a couple of days and then the only thing visible is a slightly tilted head. They accepted our explanation, but we still changed our surgical methods a little to try to decrease the impact while maintaining functionality. This seems to work. The mice I have operated on recover faster than before.
That a good surgical session is no guarantee for a good experiment was proven today when we recorded for three hours with zero result. No responsive Purkinje cells were found, which made the experiment useless from the physiological point of view. Luckily enough we had a new histological colouring method we needed to test so there was some use to it. I performed a labyrinthectomy right away to prepare a hopefully slightly more succesful experiment for next monday. In the meantime I will keep working on my report.
zielig voor de muizen
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