[Hplusroadmap] Implanting electrodes in mice

[Bryan Bishop]

On Monday 11 February 2008, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 11, 2008 at 02:54:35PM +0000, ameluti at gmail.com wrote:
> >    Hey, my first post here;
> >    Anyway, I've been fiddling with some electronics and stimulating
> >    electrodes for a while and I think I'm going to have a basic
> > device finished soon. What I plan to do is to implant it into a
> > mouse and see if I can stimulate the nucleus accumbens to make it
> > feel pleasure at the push of a button.
> >    Now, the thing is that I'm going to perform this on a living
> > mouse,
>
> Run, don't walk to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_testing_regulations and obtain
> the applicable documents for rodents in your jurisdictions. Depending
> on where you are, animal experimentation by private citizens might be
> frowned upon.

Also, surgery by private citizens tends to be frowned upon as well. This 
is why you need medical and surgical licenses in the United States. I 
want to add a "but" in here for encouragement, but I don't have one. 
Maybe talk to some med students or something.

> In general, you will need an inhalation anaesthetic, such as
> halothane. You will need to follow sterile technique. Make sure you
> learn how to euthanize mice properly (use a commercial guillotine, or
> learn to break their necks quickly). There will be surprises.

Is that how it goes in the labs these days? Makes sense.

> >    and since I've never dissected a breathing organism before, I'd
> > like to hear some suggestions on how to proceed with the surgery,
> > as it would be awfully embarrassing if I realized halfway through
> > the operation that I forgot to obtain some necessary tool.
>
> The way you address this experiment (by asking on the internets
> before you jump in) does not inspire me with confidence. I'd frankly
> wish you'd abstain, until you know what you're doing. The only real
> way is to do it in the lab.

I think there is to some good extent a large amount of preparation that 
went on even for the first live rodent surgeries, so a review of the 
history of this might be warranted to see how far (in terms of prep) 
the first 'accepted' rat surgeries went.

> "poke around"? Please tell me you're just trolling.

Isn't the poke-around method only useful with brain scanning 
technologies on the bench to help out? Otherwise you can't determine 
what parts of the brain are being activated as a result of the poking.

> You want to observe a behaving animal, I thought.

He'll probably be observing a dead animal for the first few attempts.

- Bryan
________________________________________
Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/