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What Is The Methods Of The Experiments In The Classroom Experiment?

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Methods Subjects: 12 female Long Evans rats (6 handled, 6 non-handled) and 12 male black and white rats (6 often-handled, 6 infrequently-handled) were used for this study. Each rat was approximately 125 days old (4 months and 2 days) on the day of the study (born on 7/5/2017). They were housed in cages – 2 rats per cage – of the same sex, while receiving food and water ad libitum under a 12hr:12hr light-dark cycle. Half of the male and female rats were handled twice a week for two weeks (8/29/2017-9/6/2017) (i.e., being held by student researchers and stroked on their backs), while half the rats were left untouched in their cages except for when used in one other experiment. One unhandled female rat was excluded from research analysis due …show more content…

Trials were repeated for each marker indicating the different starting positions: the north, south, east, and west sides of the maze. The amount of time it took each rat to find the platform was recorded. Tests with ethanol and saline injection were performed a day after the rats were trained. Before being put in the maze, rats were either injected with varying doses of ethanol solution or saline. One student was responsible for taking each individual rat out of his/her cage and placing them in one specific area of the maze and facing the exterior; the positions they were placed in were the north, south, east, and west regions of the maze. The rats’ goal was to navigate through the maze and find a raised platform, for which they had to wait on for ten seconds before being removed and placed back in their cages. Rats from one cage would alternate trials; for instance, the rat marked A would be placed back in its cage after being tested at the south end and would wait for further trials until rat B immediately underwent the same condition. One cage was tested at a time. Another student was in charge of recording the time it took each rat to find the platform for each trial, while someone else recorded the time each rat spent on the platform before it was removed after ten seconds. If a rat found the platform but escaped before ten seconds, it was aided back onto the platform until ten seconds was reached. One student was also responsible for

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