Cockroach Lab

By: Sullivan Tomich, Kelly Arndt, Hayley Petit, and Shannon Ervin

Experiment 1: Getting started with the Spikerbox

The surgery:

The Connection:

The Spikes:

Experiment 2: Microstimulation of Neurons and Muscles

Observations: The leg didnt react to any stimuli from the spikerbox playing music because our surgery was not performed correctly twice and we were down to only 3 more legs on our cockroach. When we tried to take the leg from the roach, first we didnt take enough coxa to perform the experiment. The second time we took too much of the cockroaches leg past the coxa to allow the neurons to react correctly. The spikerbox couldnt have been the problem because we used one that was made by the company and the sound was hooked up to the box and the iPad correctly. From other groups experiments that went correctly we can conclude that the treble has little to no effect on the leg compared to the bass. Data Table: https://docs.google.com/a/users.brandonschooldistrict.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjZW7MqUa 8f2dGJnOHRrdEtYczctelhWY0EzT19ZdHc&usp=sharing The sweet spot would be located at 600Hz with volume. Summary: From this experiment we have learned that electricity can in fact stimulate muscle tissue and the nervous system. When playing music with a lot of bass into the spikerbox, the roaches leg pulsed with the beat. The music with mostly treble, however, wasnt as effective as stated in the observation. The data table can show us why our observations are the way they are; The lower the frequency the more movement there was in the leg and vice versa. Also, shown in the table was the fact that the volume of the music influenced the movement. More times than none if the volume was as loud as possible the leg would move, and if the music was only at volume, then the leg wouldnt move. One source of error was obviously when our spikerbox was not working. Another source of error was the background noise of everyone in the classroom. Everyone talking in the background made it harder for the spikerbox to pick up purely the music.

Experiment 3: Rate Coding

Observations: After blowing lightly on the leg you could hear a fuzzy noise coming from the spikerbox. When blowing vigorously on the leg the static or fuzzy noise increased in volume. Looking at the spikes on the iPad after blowing harder, the spikes became much larger. Summary: Our observations have given us an example of how the neurons are working together. The static noise is the neurons all trying to work in harmony and communicate. The reason the neurons create a louder noise when you blow harder is because of the hair-like thorns on the femur and coxa of the leg. The more pressure or movement put upon one of the thorns, the more the neurons communicate creating larger changes in the spikes shown on the iPad. A source of error could have included where on the leg we were blowing on. We couldve received better results if we were to blow on a different region of the leg.

Experiment 4: Reaction Time

Observations: When looking at the averages we obtained from the experiments and compared them to the averages for humans in general we found that we often did better than the typical human. The test subjects would always have the same reaction time or better, however, there was only one spot this wasnt evident which is the reaction to touch. The touch reaction average we obtained was only a few seconds over the typical humans. Data Tables: https://docs.google.com/a/users.brandonschooldistrict.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjZW7MqUa 8f2dGJJbWNvaEJZMWxMX2JZMTN0a2RDOUE&usp=sharing Questions: 1. Why do you think touch and audio stimuli have a faster reaction time on average? Touch and audio reactions were faster because the grabber was given warning through stimuli, and it was up to them to use their reaction, whereas the visual reactions were up to the person holding the rulers to control. 2. Do your results match the averages mentioned above? Our results came very close to the average reaction times for humans. For audio and visual our results, in both parts of the experiment, were faster than that of the average humans. For the tactile reaction average, however, we werent as fast. The test subjects average came out to be a few seconds longer than the averages listed.

3. Would you expect a difference in the average reaction times between a male and female? What about a more athletic person compared to a more sedentary person? Men seem to have faster reaction times because of size and strength, as well as tending to be more athletic. Obviously, a more athletic person would have a quicker reaction time than a sedentary person, because they are doing more on a regular basis and reacting quickly to sports (i.e. a tennis ball flying at a player and having the player move and hit the ball back). 4. Do you think it's OK to average two people like we did? What might be the problem? The subjects may have different daily lives, for example, one being extremely athletic and one being very lazy, thus making the results skewed. To earn accurate data, you would have to compare two people that have active daily lives and/or two people that have very sedentary lives. 5. Why did we not test the "tactile" reaction time in the choice task? How could you redesign the experimental setup to test tactile reaction times in the choice task? We werent able to test the tactile reaction time in the choice task because of the fact that the person dropping the rulers didnt have a free hand. This made it hard to be able to warn the person catching the ruler with the sense of touch. The experiment couldve been set up a little bit different by having another person helping. As one person drops the ruler they could give a look or nod to indicate that they are dropping the ruler. When the other person sees the look or nod they can then tap the shoulder of the person catching the ruler on the side they must catch.

Summary: For our group the reaction time was better with the areas of visuals and audio, and we were lacking in the area of tactile or touch. For visual our reaction time was 0.06 seconds and 0.10 seconds faster than the human reaction time. The audio was 0.01 second less and the exact same as the human reaction time. The tactile was 0.03 seconds more than the human reaction time. To be able to obtain the amount of time the reaction took, we took the data we found in centimeters and put it into the equation y=1/2g0t^2. By converting the measurements into seconds, it allows us to better understand the reaction. Some sources of errors that occurred were when the person dropping the ruler might have been a little off when it make to holding the rulers so it was at exactly 0 centimeters and the other person's hand. Another error that occurred was when the person grabbing the ruler anticipated the ruler falling instead of waiting for the warning. We often redid the experiments to make sure the data wasnt anticipated.