Emmy Wang, Entry #1, Saying Hi to the Moths

My first week at the lab has been quite interesting. NTNU is spread out over several campuses and there are many students living in the area so it is easy to take the bus to the Dragvoll campus, where my lab is. This week has been relatively relaxed - I get to the lab around 9 and leave around 2, mainly because the work and preparations of the moths need to sit overnight before I can do the next step.

I jumped right into learning the methods of staining and dissecting the moth brains since I don't have much time to practice. My PI Dr. Berg first showed me how to use a small plastic tube and wax to keep the moth in place, with only its head out, to stain the olfactory receptor neuron. The antenna contains sensory neurons which lead to the antennal lobe in the brain, the main olfactory center. Hopefully the dye would be picked up by the neurons and would allow us to visualize that section of the brain.
Since the species of moths we are working with (Helicoverpa armigera) are very small, everything must be done under a microscope. This is very tiring at first and working with such small tools can sometimes be very frustrating, especially because I don't have the steadiest hands.

H. armigera before preparation

After letting the dye soak in overnight, the PhD candidate Elena showed me how to dissect the brain out of the moth. This was even more difficult especially because everything in the head basically looks the same, so in my first attempt I accidentally took out the brain thinking it was just muscular tissue. I borrowed some moths from the moth graveyard to practice. I'm not big on insects but working with them has not been too big of an issue, but sometimes cutting the head off is unsettling especially since they are still alive.

I then fixed the brain so it wouldn't disintegrate, did an ethanol series to dehydrate the brain (soaking it in increasingly concentrated ethanol), and then I was ready to observe the brain under a light microscope to see if it was successfully stained. They were. In August I'll be able to look under a confocal microscope to visualize it even clearer.

Brain under regular microscope

Brain with antennal lobe stained under the light microscope

All the members of my lab are really nice and fun to talk to. We take long lunch breaks where we just sit around and discuss recent news or anything that's on our minds. I have begun to settle in to the small city of Trondheim, and did some sightseeing around the city. Unfortunately it's starting to get cold and rainy, but you can't really expect much more from Norwegian summers.

The Nidaros Church

Next week Elena will teach me how to stain the brain through the lateral horn, one of the higher processing regions in the brain, which I think will be even more challenging. Exciting times!!