Application

Summarize your proposed experiential learning activity, including the primary focus of your activity, your intended actions, and the expectations of your supervisor and/or organization/partners.

I am an undergraduate researcher in the Moorjani Lab, where we develop neuromodulatory strategies to promote motor recovery after chronic spinal cord injury in rats. Our therapies aim to strengthen corticospinal connections weakened by the injury. For this experiential learning activity, I plan to work on a project that will assess the strength of the connections between the motor cortex and spinal cord and how they are modulated by both the injury and the therapy. I intend to conduct weekly recording and stimulation sessions to assess changes in connectivity and analyze the neuronal data using MATLAB. Additional responsibilities will include behavioral training of rats on forelimb-motor tasks and monitoring their health post injury.

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Explain how your activity demonstrates the values of the Honors Program Experiential Learning area you selected. Rather than reiterating our definition, outline how your activity embodies this definition.

Since last October when I first joined the Moorjani Lab, I have dedicated a lot of time to familiarizing myself with new tasks and increasing my efficiency in the lab. But by doing this activity, I will now be making the transition into an independent researcher. This will be paralleled by navigating the research process, engaging in new techniques, and broadening my investigative mindset, all of which embody the definition of conducting scientific research.

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How and why did you select this engagement? What skills or experiences do you hope to gain from it?

Volunteering at the UW Medical Center allowed me to see how various diseases and injuries impact patients, instilling my desire to find innovative solutions and therapies. When I came to UW, I knew I wanted to get involved in undergraduate research, specifically related to neuroscience, and the Moorjani Lab was the first lab I applied to. Although I have already gained many skills and experiences after working here for almost a year, I hope to learn how to analyze data with custom scripts written in MATLAB, explore the experimental design process, and improve my science communication skills through this activity.

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How does this activity connect to your concurrent or past coursework? How does it speak to your broader education goals and experiences?

As a student in the Honors Program intending to major in Neuroscience, I have gained an interdisciplinary perspective of this field, particularly through the Introductory Biology sequence which provided me with a better understanding of the nervous system. Now, I will be directly applying some of the concepts I have studied in my coursework for this activity while exposing myself to new ones. I also plan to take a couple gap years before applying to medical school to pursue further research so working in this lab is a great opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the field I am most passionate about.

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How will your activity contribute to the larger goals of the organization/your partners?

The Moorjani Lab focuses on developing neuromodulatory therapies for promoting motor recovery after spinal cord injury. My research project will specifically look at how those neuromodulators affect the strength of the damaged connections between the motor cortex and the spinal cord. My other duties, such as acclimating new rats and behavioral training of pre-injury rats, will ensure that the rats are proceeding through the experiential pipeline in a timely manner.​

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Reflection

As important as it is to know what works, I have learned throughout the course of my research project that it is equally important to see what does not work. Although I did not end up conducting weekly recording and stimulation sessions, I did spend a significant amount of time troubleshooting. This has been an incredibly valuable experience, as it has shown me that the reality of research is not everything works on the first try but this gives me the opportunity to think through the problem and try alternative solutions. As I tested a variety of cables and headstages, I recognized the importance of keeping track of my observations and figuring out the steps I should take next, all of which I recorded in a detailed research log. I also became more comfortable using an electrophysiology system through understanding what the individual settings do, distinguishing clean, stable signals from noisy, unstable ones, and noticing whether the signal activity is associated with the rat’s movement.

 

In addition to working on this project, I gained new experiences in relation to my other responsibilities, all of which supported the efficiency of our lab. As a part of monitoring the health of rats post-injury, I learned how to do bladder expressions — which requires locating the bladder and applying the right amount of pressure to empty it — and with enough practice, I have been able to do them independently. We also usually do health checks while the rat is sedated but after we had a rat that unfortunately did not wake up afterwards, our lab shifted to doing them unsedated unless they needed a nail trim. However, I became proficient at doing nail trims with the rat fully awake so I started teaching other members of the lab how to do this, further eliminating the need for sedated health checks. I even learned how to train injured rats, allowing me to work with a different group of rats in the pipeline. These are the same rats I had once acclimated and trained for handedness so it was interesting to see how their behaviors and reaching abilities have changed post-injury. 

 

Overall, this experiential learning activity has been pivotal in my transition to an independent researcher. I have developed several professional skills such as collaborative communication, critical thinking, experimental design, and problem solving, all of which have made me a better researcher and student. I also learned more about my own interests in that I enjoy working closely with animals so this is something I will be considering if I choose to pursue another project in the future. Since we recently received a new set of headstages that are giving cleaner signals, my plan now is to begin doing weekly recording and stimulation sessions with these headstages and analyze the data with MATLAB as I had originally proposed. Although the experimental timeline got pushed back, working in this lab has made me more certain about my desire to study neuroscience and I am excited to see this project through to the end.

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Artifact

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