Catia Dombaxe / Dr. Schwartz Week 5

  07/03/23 - 07/07/23

This week, I spent most of the week doing surgeries in mice and creating a pseudocode to analyse the images we will obtain. Next week, I will start our Free behaving calcium imaging and get some data to be interpreted. During the surgeries some of my mice died, but I fortunate to have practiced extensively and I have a few mice to continue the studies. Here is an example of the protocol I am writing for the extracranial window placement:

Extracranial window placement:

1.     Anesthetize mice with 4% isoflurane inhalation and keep oxygen level at 1%

2.     Transfer and fix mice into the stereotaxic head frame

3.     Keep mice on a heating pad at 37 C

4.     Maintain oxygen level at 0.6% and isoflurane at 1.5% throughout surgery

5.     Remove hair with Nair

6.     Iodine and alcohol swab x2

7.     Make an incision on the skin

8.     Using the microscope, clean the white tissue around the sutures.

9.     Place the PDMS on the skull and mark the size of the PDMS using a marker

10.  Cut the end of the PDMS

11.  Start the craniotomy with a 005 drill bit

12.  Place the PDMS and use Vetbond to seal it

13.  Place the window and use Metabond to seal it

14.  Give antibiotics to mice

15.  Put mice back on a cage with a heating pad

16.  Monitor mice until gaining full function.

 Additionally, this week I attended the Grand Rounds Lecture organised by the Department of Medicine at Weill. It was interesting to learn more about chronic kidney disease and the diagnostic strategies that have been employed.

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