Nicole and the "Drunken Mouse"

Today was the very first day that I analyzed open field data of the mice that had been injected with 40 mg of cocaine. The tapes run for about an hour, most times featuring two mice for convenience, and the analyst is supposed to focus on just decoding one mouse behavior at a time. When I began watching the mice, of course their behavior was "different", even strange, but as I approached the time to analyze that small brown mouse in arena 20, the adjectives strange and different became better suited for use in understatements.
Post-injection, the mouse would sit up on its hind legs and rock from foot to foot as if it was "tippy", which is the word designated to describe this behavior in decoding. After rocking and leaning his/her head against the glass walls of the arena surroundings for a few seconds, she would proceed to play it cool as her little mouse body would erratically fall into the center of the arena. She had a lack of balance in her walk, sniff, and stance that could best be imagined if compared to an ad on the effects of alcohol consumption at its worse....