Student Research at Duke

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Currently, 7.7 million people in the United States have Post Tramatic Stress Disorder.  With thousands of soldiers returning home from Iraq, the Department of Defense in interested in helping create a cure for the disease.  Thousands of dollars are being invested to find a cure.  Despite all this, no mouse model exists for PTSD.  This summer, I am going to examine a mutant mouse that appears to exhibit PTSD symptoms.

To do this, I have to run three experiments.  First, I run a fear conditioning experiment.  For three days, the mice are acclimated to a shocking cage.  On the fourth day, the mice are lightly shocked.  This trauma induced PTSD in the mice.  Then, I examine how the mice act in the shocking cage after being placed in the shocking cage on subsequent days.  Second, I will run an experiment called pre-pulse inhibition.  The mice are placed in a small tube in a sound proof box.  A load noise startles the mice.  For normal mice, they become accostomed to the shock, and eventually the shock startle the mice.  Mice with PTSD continue to be startled and show a larger startle response.  Lastly, I am going to run an experiment called social numbing.  For this experiment, I will examine the mice in their home cages.  PTSD mice tend to being socially isolated, aggressive, and have trouble sleeping.  Hopefully, my experiments will all turn out well.

Dr. Wetsel, department of Psychiatry, is the head of the lab that I am working in this summer.  My mentor is Ramona Rodriguez.  Dr. Wetsel conducts research on mice with a variety of disorders ranging from addiction to cocaine to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  I am going to examine Post Tramatic Stress Disorder in mice.  I tried to upload pictures, but the website would not accept the pictures from my computer.