Being a neuroscience major, research and lab work is a huge part of my academic workload. Once past the intro neuroscience courses, the upper-level courses expect students to be able to develop and test research hypotheses as a part of the labs. For example, in Neuroscience 110 last semester, also known as Developmental Neurobiology, I worked with zebrafish, or Danio rerio. The zebrafish is — you guessed it — a striped little fish that usually only grows to about 1 or 2 inches in length, and a very popular “aquarium” fish, often sold at Petsmart or the like. Zebrafish, strangely enough, are also one of the biggest tools in neuroscience research today. Much more ethical than testing on mice or other mammals, and having the advantages of an easily manipulated and observable gestation along with a functional nervous system, zebrafish are a very common animal to see in neuroscience labs.
The resident zebrafish expert here on campus is Dr. Jonathan Matsui, a Neuroscience professor who teaches Neuro 110 and has a lab in Seaver South constantly swimming with zebrafish research. One of the biggest areas of research in his lab is the use of zebrafish embryo to study the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome, done by exposing newly fertilized zebrafish to copious quantities of ethanol and seeing how this affects their development as a human model (hence the partying reference in the title). For those of you who only read this because of the sheer confusion about partying fish, sorry if the resolution to this dilemma was a let-down.
After having taken his class, I figured I was qualified enough to work in his lab this semester. Having just gotten into the lab, I haven’t done too much of note, besides feeding his large quantity of zebrafish (you wouldn’t believe how many different genetic strains of zebrafish exist) and being assigned to work on one particular genetic anomaly, the aptly named “small-eye” mutant zebrafish, for the research that I will be doing as a part of the lab. Feeding the fish is quite the thrill, so exciting that I honestly couldn’t capture the experience with words in this post. If you didn’t pick up the sarcasm there, I was being sarcastic. The tanks line the walls of a locked-up closet deep in the entrails of the Seaver South basement, and their food is either the classic smelly flakes (putting that into about 120 tanks pinch by pinch is simply breathtaking) or cultured krill grown in a water tank in the lab (not as smelly, just weirdly reminiscent of Sea Monkeys).
However, all in the name of science, as they say. Hopefully I get a lovely name-drop on one of Dr. Matsui’s research papers, but that might be a little much to ask this early in my research journey. Maybe some thesis help? To be continued…