Stephanie Lazzaro

I am currently a freshman in the Honors College here at Rutgers University. I began working in the lab while I was a senior in high school at The Academy for Medical Science Technology. In the lab, I have mostly been involved with the rat behavioral studies where we researched the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex regions of the brain. During my experience in the lab as an intern, I have gained many physical and conceptual skills. I have learned techniques such as making anesthesia (such as avertin and equithesian), PBS, and formalin. I have also learned the neurotaxic lesion technique which involves injecting anesthesia, mounting the rat onto the stereotaxic, making an incision, drilling, using the stereotaxic and Ibotenic Acid to make lesions, and suturing. I gained experience in caring for the animals as well as prepping them for experiments. I learned the use and care of experimental chambers as well as computer programming for conditioning tasks. I perform histology, which includes perfusion, removing the brain, sectioning, mounting slices, staining and evaluating the lesions. However, with all of this, I find the conceptual skills I have developed to be the most important. I have leaned how to understand and critique empirical reports, understand experimental rationale, explain rationale to others, analyze data, present data, interpret data, and finally how to design and carry out an experiment. I have gained a lot from my time in the lab and plan to continue to be involved with the rat behavioral experiments, while also broadening my horizons by becoming involved in other things that are going on in the lab, such as the human studies. When I graduate, I plan to go on for my M.D. and P.h.D. in neuroscience.