Good evening everybody!
Hope you all are doing well.
Today I have something very unique to share with you all. It’s a mix of unique and weird at the same time. In my last blogs, I’ve already shared my introduction with you where I mentioned that I am currently pursuing my bachelor’s degree in BSc Toxicology HonsSource
This field mainly focuses on toxicity testing of drugs, food contaminants, environmental pollutants, and many other things.
Today I had a very uncommon experience and honestly it was my first time too. So today we began with an animal dissection experiment (rat dissection). Since our studies involve understanding how drugs work, we have to perform many experiments on specific organs to test drugs for particular diseases.
We started by wearing gloves, lab coats, masks etc, basically we followed GLP (Good Laboratory Practices).
First we arranged a rat from our university’s animal house. After that we gathered all the required equipment like scisoors, forceps, syringes, surgical blades, needles, falcon tubes, blotting paper and so on.
Source
Our lab attendant then took the rat from its cage and gave it anesthesia (ketamine + xylazine) through the rectal route using a needle and syringe. Along with that he also provided an inhalation anesthetic mixed in water so that the rat could get fully unconscious and we could perform the experiment safely.
The rat became unconscious within 5 to 7 minutes of giving the anesthesia.
Then we started with the dissection by carefully removing the upper layer of the rat’s skin near its abdomen. Once the outer skin was removed we could see a thin pinkish layer of tissue underneath. Using scissors we made a precise cut starting from the upper part near the rat’s front legs.
As soon as we opened it up the very first organ we saw was the heart and guess what, it was beating. The heartbeat was very fast at first. We didn’t touch it and just let it beat naturally.
Meanwhile we isolated other organs:
First we removed the liver by expanding the cut across the abdomen and placed it separately.
Then we took out the kidneys and isolated them too.
As we continued removing the organs one by one we noticed the heartbeat gradually slowing down. Once all the required organs were taken out we left the heart inside since we didn’t need it for testing that day.
After that we used a special machine that separates the head from the body. We placed the rat inside and the machine detached its head completely. Honestly this part felt very unsettling to me.
Then we carefully opened up the head and cut through the skull bone using a bone cutter to isolate the brain.
The rest of the body was placed in a disposal bag.
Finally the isolated organs were stored at -4°C for further testing and the body was sent back to the animal house for proper disposal using their standard protocol which involves chopping and discarding in a safe and ethical way.
This was my first experience with something so intense and honestly the last part when the head was separated from the body made me feel really strange. It was both a thrilling and nerve wracking moment for me.
So yeah that was my unique and slightly heart shaking experiment and experience for today.
Thank you
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