So my PI here at the Cold Spring Harbor Labs has noticed that our CBA/caj mice have a higher tendency to eat the brains of their pups as compared to other mice like transgenic channelrhodopsin mice (that he wants to later use). With this observation, we can perform a preliminary behavioral study in which we monitor post-birth behavior in parental mice in multiple strains.

By doing this, we can formally conclude which mice are more likely to eat their young (and their brains!) and show direct measurements in terms of ratio of pups eaten vs. not eaten, as well as assessments of aggressiveness. With this data, we can write a grant proposal to fund the rest of the project, which I shall hereby describe.

We shall do full genome sequencing of at least two of each strain of mice that we used. Hire a bioinformatician with the grant money and make him/her analyze the genes and see if we can find candidate gene correlates for eating the brains of pups. 

From that, we can test whether those genes are turned on before, during, and after pup-brain eating by sacrificing and perfusing the mice at those time periods and using qtPCR for those genes. The problem is, we may have to figure out how to make our own primers and stuff…but I’m sure it’s possible! 
From there, if we can breed mice to over-express the gene, we can see if the mice are even more likely to eat their pups. We can also see if we can knock out the gene, if mice are less likely to eat their pups, or if the behavior is eliminated altogether. 

What is the significance of these possible findings? We can send a paper to Nature claiming that we have found THE ZOMBIE GENE!!!!!!!

Later, we can get military funding, train the mice to like human brains with classical conditioning, and train them to become more aggressive. We will thus have a whole army of zombie mice!

What’s actually more feasible: we can find a small mouse fMRI, and stick a mother mouse in there, present them the smell of pup brain, and see which areas are activated.

With that, we can attempt to discover the neural circuit that correlates with the decision making to eat a mouse pup. This can be done with multi-unit and single unit recordings in that supposed area, in which we present odor stimuli of a mouse pup that has been “contaminated” by human touch (one of the triggers that induces the pup eating behavior), and from that we can see if there are any neurons that respond to it. If we find neurons that responds to it, we can also try to label it that neuron with an anterograde viral tracer or some other tracer or dye that will allow us to make images and see the circuit that it belongs to. 

Future possible experiments can include optogenetics where we can stimulate that area or those neurons and force the mouse to eat the pup’s brains. 

The significance of this second proposal is that we can actually understand more about the neural circuits behind brain processing of new vs. familiar stimuli, in this case, olfactory. This is because mice will eat their pups if they think the pup is sick, or has got some random new scent or crap on it that is foreign to them (like humans handling the pups). This will actually give insight into the processing of these stimuli, as well as its connections with behavior, such as aggressive behavior (e.g. mice eating their pups and their BRAINS!).

With these potential data sets, we can say we found the zombie genes and the zombie neural circuit!!!!!!

Zombie mice….ATTACK!!!!