Question: What sort of experiments do you do ?

Emma Cahill answered on 12 Nov 2013:

Hi Jessica, so from day to day I actually work will brain cells grown in plastic dishes and with mice.
This afternoon for example, I will take pictures of those brain cells in a microscope. I can see them because I performed a technique called “immunohistochemistry”, looong word but basically we can label different parts of cells using flourescent markers and them look at them under the microscope. I want to see if I put drugs on those cells will there be a difference in what I see inside them.
I also study mouse behavior. I inject them with cocaine and study how their behaviour changes. They remember where in a maze they got the injection of cocaine, we call it “place preference”, and we can see how quickly they will run there to get it if we let them. We try to stop them “wanting” the cocaine by injecting them with different treatments before they enter the maze.