Neural systems & Circuits provides students with an understandng of the structure, function, and arrangement of the mammalian nervous system. This course follows the Foundations I course that establishes an understanding of the structure and function of the cellular components involved in the nervous system. In this course, we discussed the mammalian brain, the purpose of the nervous system, regulatory circuits that dictate certain behaviors, and systems that assist with learning and memory. For the lab component of this course, we worked with laboratory rodents which required me becoming CITI certified in mouse husbandry and handling. My lab group and I created an original project analyzing the effects of chronic ethanol consumption using the open field test and the forced swim test to analyze anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors respectively. Our results showed that our experimental mice displayed a trend toward taking longer to perform behavioral assays compared to their wild type littermates. At the end of this project I assisted with the euthanasia and decapitation of the mice following IACUC protocol. 

We later presented this research at the Spring Annual Research Conference (SpARC) and the Scotties with Nerves Research Symposium (SwN), both hosted by Agnes Scott College.