Course Requirements

The course will be conducted as follows: The formal laboratory session is on Monday, from 1200 to 1550. Each Monday, we will examine a particular laboratory paradigm. There will be a short lecture/discussion of the procedure involved, special problems will be mentioned, and possible methods of analysis will be presented. Occassionally we will have guest speakers discuss topics of interest. Then, we will conduct a laboratory exercise based on that procedure. Each pair of students will be assigned a rat for these exercises, and is responsible not only for the careful conduct of the individual exercises, but also for the rat's maintenance on the weekdays in between. Careful notes must be kept on the procedure and the results. A report of these results must be submitted no later than the beginning of class on the Monday following the exercise.

As mentioned, students are responsible for the maintenance of their rats from Tuesday to Friday. This responsibility will mean giving the rat a one-hour feeding session in the afternoon. During this time, either I or my teaching assistant will be available for consultation regarding questions of technique or analysis.

In addition to the laboratory excercises, there are a variety of other assignments. These assignments are: NSERC Grant Application (a carefully documented research proposal), Log Book (your thoughts and comments on what you read during the course), Ethics Proposal (an animal ethics protocol related to your Grant Application), and Critical Review Paper (a short critique of a research article).

There is no final examination in this course. Instead, your grant application will be handed in at 1400 hr, Tuesday 22 April, 1997, the date officially assigned by the Registrar for the final exam.

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