For my internship project, I'm going to observe the behavior and creativity of three different strains of mice when they're given novel items in their cages. Mice will make nests with the materials that they are given, and I'll be looking at how they use these new items when they create their habitats. This experiment requires me to be extremely organized.
I designed a cage that had standard and wood bedding, a paper cup, a cup sleeve, one piece of felt, string, a petri dish, a plastic vial, compacted cotton, and a PVC pipe. From what I've seen here, a standard cage usually has standard or wood bedding, food, and a PVC pipe, so the mice will be presented with many new things to explore. We are using a total of 48 mice from three different strains in this study- C57Bl/6, BALB/cJ, and nude mice- to see if there are any differences in their nesting behavior. We also separated males and females so that we don't have baby mice in the end.
[insert pictures of final cage]
[ insert pictures of three strains]
Yesterday, I finished setting up the experiments and placed the mice in their new cages. We weighed the mice, marked them, then separated them so that each one is with no more than one mouse from the cage in which they grew up.
Now that the mice are in the novel cages, I'm responsible for making sure that they have food and water each morning, analyzing their nests, and recording data. Some of the questions that I'm trying to answer are:
After just one day of this study, I've already seen some interesting behavior- I can't wait to see what the next few days will bring!
I designed a cage that had standard and wood bedding, a paper cup, a cup sleeve, one piece of felt, string, a petri dish, a plastic vial, compacted cotton, and a PVC pipe. From what I've seen here, a standard cage usually has standard or wood bedding, food, and a PVC pipe, so the mice will be presented with many new things to explore. We are using a total of 48 mice from three different strains in this study- C57Bl/6, BALB/cJ, and nude mice- to see if there are any differences in their nesting behavior. We also separated males and females so that we don't have baby mice in the end.
[insert pictures of final cage]
[ insert pictures of three strains]
Yesterday, I finished setting up the experiments and placed the mice in their new cages. We weighed the mice, marked them, then separated them so that each one is with no more than one mouse from the cage in which they grew up.
Now that the mice are in the novel cages, I'm responsible for making sure that they have food and water each morning, analyzing their nests, and recording data. Some of the questions that I'm trying to answer are:
- Are mice working together to create a nest?
- How creative are they?
- How do we define creativity?
- How can I quantify creativity for this experiment?
- Will mice use the materials as means for nesting, or will they also use them for other purposes?
After just one day of this study, I've already seen some interesting behavior- I can't wait to see what the next few days will bring!