PRISM 2016

The goal of this experiment is to determine the neurological changes in maternal rats through behavioral analysis and neuron size and connectivity outcomes. The first step is to obtain pregnant rats in order to monitor their behavior after the delivery of their pups. In this experiment, 18 maternal rats have been ordered which contrasts previous experiments with 12 maternal rats in hope to increase variation and overall spread to increase the probability of obtaining statistically significant data. Once the pups are delivered, each mother rat is videotaped for the amount of time spent grooming each liter of pups and the latency period in retrieval of pups. Each mother rat undergoes 6 separate trials of 8 pups total. The first being 8 own pups, then 4 own, 3 own, 2 own, 1 own, and 0 own with alien pups to equal 8 pups for each trial. The alien pups are obtained from different liters of the other mother rats not being tested in that trial. Once all mother rats have been tested and monitored, the next step is to collect brain samples for neuron counting and analyze the behavior of each maternal rat.

Below is a YouTube video created to explain in detail the experiment: