https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140803193754.

htm
https://www.seeker.com/10-best-sniffers-in-the-animal-kingdom-1768828254.html
http://www.popsci.com/super-sniffer-mice-have-ultra-powerful-sense-smell
https://global.britannica.com/science/olfactory-receptor
https://prezi.com/0024yd9s77w9/guinea-pigs-sight-smell-or-memory/

http://www.med.cmu.ac.th/research/animal/animal/GUIENAPIG.pdf

https://sites.google.com/site/pamperthosepiggiesptp/guinea-pig-senses

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2753229/(Literature?)

Guinea pig factfile - rspca

Introduction: Ja
Your thoughts, why does this matter? How is it connected to the topic?

Introduction must have ;

1. What is the central research question?

2. What is the topic of study related to that question?

3. Why this is important research, what is its significance, and why should someone reading the proposal care about

the outcomes of the proposed study?

Do you ever notice that the mouse with small little nose has sharp sense of smell? The

reason for this keen sense is because of the olfactory receptor genes. The olfactory receptor is

part of the cell membrane in the olfactory receptor neurons. The role of it is to detect odorant

which is the compound that contain smell(Chapman & Bernays, 2011). The more it is, the better

sense of smell each individual will has. It is important to know because it is the natural process

for all animals to smell which it is helpful for them to find the ways back home and foraging.

From the scientific research, guinea pig was ranked on the top tenth animals that has the genes to

distinguish different smell. It has about 796 olfactory receptor genes. For the mice, it ranked on

top sixth with about 1,130 olfactory receptor genes. The mice have this much because they have
variety of diet. Moreover, the rat ranked on the second place with 1,207 olfactory receptor

genes(Viegas, 2014). This information is useful because it is important for the animals to forage

by using their sense of smell. Thus, in our opinion, for foraging, the food at the end of the maze

will lead the guinea pig to the exit.

The goal of this experiment is to find out whether the guinea pig can use their sense of

smell to lead them out of the maze or not. If the experiments result show that the guinea pig can

find the way out, then it will help to solve many problems. In Thailand, there are many rats and

mice living in the tunnel which this can cause problems. This is because flood always occur

oftenly in cities. When the flood come, human might get sick by the leptospirosis disease because

the disease might be mixed with the water. However, if the result be like our hope, the problem

can be solved by trick the mouse out of tunnel by their sense of smell. Another useful thing to

use the mouses sense of smell in the future is to use the mouse to detect disease. By doing this,

the mouse genetic engineering might occur to develop their new sense of smell. Therefore, from

this experiment, it is the guideline for other scientists to use this result in developing country and

solve many problems.

Literature Review I: Baifern, Ja

What are the experiments that scientists have completed in the past
what questions other researchers have asked,
what methods they have used,
what is your understanding of their findings and,
where stated, their recommendations.
What are some categories you may include in your paper?
How do you know you've covered the key conceptual categories underlying the research
literature?
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnins.2015.00318/full

*Experiment 1*
Impaired sense of smell and altered olfactory system
in RAG-1 immunodeficient mice
RAG-1-/- mice
Background information
The RAG-1-/- mice were prepared by by Prof. Hans Stauss, (University College London, UK)
while control C57BL/6 mice. These two types of mice were taken care in the same conditions. In
the experiments, the scientists used male mice which have 7 weeks old and no 2 more tests per
day. For the embryos, they mated the mice in the evening, so in the morning the vaginal plug
appeared means that it is successful mating. The embryos will be considered 0.5 day old. All
tests, which were approved by the local biological service unit at Queen Mary University of
London, were performed in a blinded fashion and according to the UK Animals (Scientific
Procedures) Act, 1986.
Gheoloojdf

Experiments
Buried food test
Purpose: to measure an animal's ability to smell volatile odors and its natural tendency to use
olfactory cues for foraging.
Materials
 - RAG-1-/- mice experimental group
- C57/BL6 mice control group
- Environment, deepest and location of latent bait beneath the
bedding, the type of the bait which is cookie control variable
- Time that two types of mouse can reach the cookie dependent
variable
Methods (testing protocol of 3 days)
1. First day, an odor familiarization exercise, the scientists use a clean mouse plastic
cage (25 42 12 cm) containing 3 cm of fresh cage bedding to be the place for 7-week
male C57BL/6 and RAG-1 mice (6 mice per cage). Then they gave the 1 cookie
for every 2 mice and left overnight. So they would check if the cookies are gone
or not for making sure that mice loved it.
2. Food deprivation on day 2 started one day before the test on 4 PM. The scientist
removed food from the cage and let mice fasted overnight.
3. Testing on day 3 was started by moving the mice to the new cage with 3 cm deep
bedding and let the mice make themselves at home in this new habitat for 5 minutes for
reducing the exploration the new environment. Next, the cookies was buried in the corner
of the cage with constant length away from every mice. The time was measured by the
step of the mice which were counted in seconds. 15 minutes or 900 seconds was the
maximum score (Yang and Crawley, 2009).
Results
One of the main purpose of mouse for using the sense of smell is to forage, which means the
buried food test is able to use for the experiment. Cookies, the palatable food which is already
tested from the palatability of the bait test that resulted no difference between RAG-1-/- and
C57/BL6 because both consumed the whole cookies. In the experiment, cookie was hidden under
the bedding by measuring the length using one step of a mouse per one second.
As the experiment, the observation shows a significant five-fold increase in finding hidden bait.
203 s 77.7 in the RAG-1-/- mice compared to 42 s 18.9 in control group which is C57/BL6
mice.

*Experiment 2*

The bury food test

In this experiment, the scientist find out how long will the mouse take to find small

pieces of foods like cookies, cereal, chocolate chips, and food pellets. The food is hide under the

mouse bed. The mouse only has 12 minutes to find the food.

Hypothesis:
The mouse that cannot find the food in 12 minutes will have less olfactory receptors

Material:

- Mice
- Cages
- Cage lids
- Cage bedding
- Food
- Timer
- Stopwatches

Before Experiment:

To find out what is the mouse favorite food, the scientists have put many types of food in

the case in each day. The one that the mouse consume will be the one that they used in the

experiment. One day before the test, remove all of the food but remain the water in the case.

Experiment:

Firstly, put the mouse into the cage that contain 3 cm deep bedding. Second, let the

mouse adapt to it new environment for 5 minutes. Third, move the mouse to the empty cage and

bury the food at each corner 1 cm down from the surface to the bedding cage. Forth, move the

mouse from empty cage to the bedding cage and place the cage lids. Fifth, time of observing, the

scientist start the timer and stopwatch. Sixth, stop the stopwatch when the mouse find the food.

Seventh, record the time and note whether the mouse consume food or not. If the mouse fail to

find food in 15 minutes, you must stop the test and record 900 scores for its. After that, repeat the

experiment again for the new mouse. Finally, to find the percent failed, compare the time

between each trial.

Assume Result:

Mouse with normal olfactory will find the food within a minute. However, the mouse that

has normal olfactory can failed in finding food because of the anxiety.
*New Experiment*

https://academic.oup.com/chemse/article/33/9/815/461863/The-Identification-of-Attractive-

Volatiles-in-Aged

The Identification of Attractive Volatiles in Aged Male Mouse Urine

Experiment:

In this experiment, the scientists were testing about the aged males urine attraction toward the

female. The attraction is greater in adult than in the younger one.

Materials & Procedure:

- Animal:

The mice were bred at Hokkaido University and stay in 22C room which they will see light 12

hours and dark 12 hours.

- Urine Collection:

The urine will be collected from the mouse of the age 3-8 Months, 15-20 months, and 20 months.

Each age urine will be collected from about 2-3 individuals. The urine will be store in the sterile

tubes at -80 C.

- Ultrafiltration of mouse urine:

The urine were pretreated with Amicon Ultra-4 Ultracel-10k at 5C to remove volatile ligands

and urinary proteins.

- Behavioral study:

They made the experiment to find out whether the age of male mice will made different

attraction toward the female or not. By doing this, they used the male mice urine to test. They

collected the data by timing how much times will each female mice used to sniff different age of
male urine. In this experiment, they will used eighty-one virgin females mice with the age of 2 to

5 months to prove their hypothesis. About 3 to 4 mice were stayed in each case. However, before

the experiment, the mice need to practice for the 3 minutes habituation of sniffing the urine. The

average time sniffing is 10.5 seconds. Therefore, in the real experiment, the mice with only 11

seconds sniffing will be recorded in the data. The experiment were conducted in the rectangle

cage and their were the two circular ports on each side of the wall. The ports were stuck above

the floor for about 3cm high. Then, the glass vials contained 0.5ml of urine of the different male

age were put in each port. The urine that they used come from aged male, adult male,

ultrafiltered aged male, and ultrafiltered adult male.

- Result:

The average time for the mouse to sniff was 39.1 2.7 s for the both normal age urine and 36.8

2.2 s for both ultrafiltered age urine. In the investigation for the normal urine, the female prefer

the aged male urine more than the adult urine. In the ultrafiltered urine, there was no differences

among the female on both aged and adult male urine.

Point of including the literature review:

This information is important in doing our experiment because it help us to know more

about the mouse behaviors. Also, from study other experiments, the guinea pig running maze

project can adapted other experiment to make it more reliable. We learned about environment

factors that might cause the mouse to frighten and will lead the the failure of experiment.

Nevertheless, we learned to reduce the mouse stress and excitement during the study. If we dont

research about this experiments first, our experiment might get mess and collapse.

Cite:

According to research study of the Scents that Matter - From Olfactory Stimuli to

Genes, Behaviors and Beyond by Rattazz, Cariboni, Poojara, Shoenfeld and D'Acquisto and

Identification of Attractive Volatiles in Aged Male Mouse Urine by Osada, Tashiro, Mori, and

Izumi

Compare:

Before working on the experiment, both research have agreed on making the mice

became habituation with the environment. Both of the study show that they will place the mice in

the experiment area to make sure that the mice can adapted to the new environment and will not

frightened during the experiment. From the result, in experiment 1, the average time that RAG-

1-/- used are 203 s 77.7 and the average time for C57/BL6 are 42 s 18.9 which means that

both of them can successfully find the food in the limited about of time(15 minutes). Also, in the

experiment 2 result, the mice can used their sense of smell to distinguish the different between

the age of the male. The female will used their time to sniff the aged male urine much more than

the adult male urine. Therefore, from the result of both research, it can be concluded that the
mouse sense of smell is important because it made the mice to do many thing like foraging and

surviving etc.

Contrast:

In the bury food experiment, the scientists test their sense of smell for foraging food in

their bed and in the Urine experiment, the scientists test the attraction of the male mice

urine(different age) toward the female mice. After researching it show that sense of smell is one

of the major ability for the mice to survive.

Critique:

The literature review of experiment 2(The Identification of Attractive Volatiles in Aged

Male Mouse Urine) is the most persuasive because the scientist have test about the ability of

odor distinguish between the mice(compare the attraction of the adult male urine, aged male

urine, adult ultrafiltrate male urine, and aged ultrafiltrate male urine). From the result of this

experiment, it show that the mice can separate the different between odor.

Connect:

In the project, the goal is to investigate and analyse whether the experiment will support

the research question of Can the Guinea Pig use their sense of smell to help them foraging?.

During the experiment, the result will show whether the guinea pig can find the food in the maze

by using their sense of smell or not. If they can find the food, it will prove that they can use their

sense of smell for foraging. To connect with the research experiment(bury food test), both of the

experiment have a purpose to find about will the mice can used their sense of smell for surviving.

Cite: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnins.2015.00318/full

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2753229/
Compare: The experiment in both research is the same which is the bury food test.

Contrast: In experiment 1, the scientist didnt test for which food the mice will like the most.

They only used cookies for the experiment. However, in experiment 2, the scientists try several

types of food which included cookies, cereal, chocolate chips, and food pellets.

Connect: When the scientist put the mouse to the bedding cage for adapting, we think that they

should give the mouse more time to stay in that cage(for about 2-3 hours). This is because if the

mouse doesnt adapt to the environment enough, it will lead to an inaccurate experiment(the

mouse might be frightened while doing the experiment).

Knowledge Gap: Baifern

what question has not been answered yet about this topic?

how does your experiment help fill this gap Guinea pig factfile - rspca

According to Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals science

group (RSCPA), Guinea pig is the prey animals which is active in senses of new

sights, smells, and sound, so they have well-developed sense including sense of

smell. Sense of smell is so important to a guinea pig, a social animals, to interact

with other guinea pigs and also humans.

The maze experiment helps to prove the ability of the sense of smell of

guinea pig because, in the experiment, food is placed at the end of the maze

in the first trial to test how fast(in seconds) the guinea pig can reach the

destination. Second trial, compared to the first trial, there is no food for this

trial to test if the sense of smell of guinea pig is effective by timing how

faster or slower they will reach the end of the maze.

Research Question: Ja

Can the Guinea Pig use their sense of smell for foraging?

Overview of Experiment Details: Jinny

background information, history, context of the experiment

Edward Tolman is the psychologist. He also the first person who studies about rat by

investigate them by using the maze. He believed that individuals not only respond

to stimuli, but they also act on behalf of their attitudes, beliefs and will change

conditions in order to achieve their goals. He also have his partner name Honzik to

joined the maze experiment. They help each other build up the maze for that they

can investigated the rat. According to the experiment, rats also tend to process

information rather than acting based on stimulus responses.

List of Materials: Jinny
list out all the materials that will be used in the experiment

Mouse

- Food feed, dry grass

- Toys
- Cage
- Water bottle for animals
- 2 female Guinea Pigs
- Stopwatch

Maze

- Feature board (optional)

- Nails
- Color (optional)
 - Fabric

Methodology: Nene
What is your experimental procedure?

Reduce Stress by conditioning:

Unconditioned Stimuli(UCS): Food(Grass)

Unconditioned Response(UCR): Running to eat

Conditioned Stimulus(CS): People(Ja, Jinny, Nene, Baifern)

At first, the guinea pigs will get scared by the people. They might bite or freeze because

of stress and frightened. To reduce stress, the experimenters might need to know what food do

the guinea pigs like and will make them happy. In the experiments, the grass will be used as a

unconditioned stimuli which will make the guinea pigs made a response. After the grass were

given to the guinea pigs, they will run to eat(Unconditioned Response). However, since the

guinea pigs get scared by people(Conditioned Stimulus), the experimenters need to meet the

guinea pigs with food every time. The experimenters also might need to pad the guinea pigs

while feeding them. After the experimenters doing these procedure for several days, the guinea

pigs will gradually reduce their stress and be able to trust people. Therefore, the experimenters

can successfully do the running maze experiment.

For the maze:

The experimenters will design and sketch the maze first by using other scientists maze as

a model. After finished designing the maze, the experimenters will gather all the materials that

will be used to make the maze. Each of the pieces of feature board of the height will be measured

for 10 cm. Then cut the feature board into the shaped that will be the wall of the maze(each
pieces will have different sizes). For the base of the maze, use one big feature board. The wall of

the maze will have rectangle shape and square shape (but the length will be optional can be short

or long based on the size of the animal). After that cut the feature board into long rectangle shape

(4 of them) for using them as a wall that covered around the maze. Then use the hot glue gun to

connect each of the wall on the base feature board. Make sure that the glue is not dry before the

wall connect with the based. For the curtain, cut the pieces of cloth into square shape (the height

must be 10 cm) and use the hot glue gun to connect the edge of the cloth on the stick. Finally, put

the curtain near the exit of the maze.

For Guinea pig training:

The maze will be used in the experiment for two trials. In the first trial, the first Guinea

Pig will run into the maze that the food was placed at the end of the maze and there is a limited

of time for it to run the maze to reach the end by the time of 12 minutes. In the second trial, the

second Guinea Pig will run into the maze that not have the food on the end of the maze but the

guinea pig still have the same limited of the time which is 12 minutes like on the first trial. If the

guinea pig cannot run the maze within the limited amount of time, then it will considered as

failed. Each trial will be record to compare the result. Thus, the experimenters can see the

improvement of each guinea pig and see which one will reach the exit better (the one with food

at the end and the one that doesnt have food at the end). Then repeat the experiment(each guinea

pigs need to run 3 trials).

Maze Design and Justification: Nene

What is the design of the maze which will be used?
 This design have been selected to use in the experiment because the design is not too

complex for the guinea pig. In this experiment, the goal is to test the guinea pigs sense of smell.

In the maze, there is a curtain that block the way to the food and in during the experiment will

find out that can the guinea pig success to pass through the curtain to get through the food. Also,

according to Tolman experiment he also doing the maze in the way that not too complicated just

walked up and then turn right then will find the curtain that hide the food. So doing this design

will answer the question that does the guinea pig have sense of the nose good enough to know

that the food have been hise behind the curtain.

In the maze, the food will be placed at the end of the maze path to test the guinea pig

sense of smell and also being a reward for Guinea Pigs after it finishing running the maze.
Methodology Literature Review: Ja,

Baifern
what is the methodology used by other scientists?

- what scientist use cite to help

 According to the buried food experiment, the scientists find the most tastable food for the

mice. First step, they place the mice into the cages (6 mice per cage) and then left the baits

overnight which are cookies to test the palatability. Next, after testing the bait, the scientists put

the mice to the new cage to let the mice adapted with the environment. From the test, they

suggest to put the mice in only 5 minutes but in our experiment the mice will stay in the cage for

1-2 hours for adapting instead.

To create the maze our group have adapt the design from the psychologist man named

Tolman. Adapted by using the curtain to blocked the way near the exit. By doing this, it will test

that if using the curtain to blocked the way to the food, can the mice pass through the curtain to

find the food and exit the maze.

Ethical/ Humane Statement: Nene

What considerations did you take into account to ensure the animal will not be

harmed and suffere minimal stress?

During the experiment, the guinea pig might get stress. So, to minimize their stress, the

experimenter need to pat them and let them take a free walk around the maze area. Moreover,

before the experiment, the experimenters need to put the guinea pig in the maze for adapting.

If the animal still afraid, then give them some snack and hold them closely.

For the maze, after finished on creating it, let the maze dry by placing the maze in the sun

for about 2-3 days because it will have the smell of the glue which may cause the guinea pig to

have health problem. Moreover, let the maze dried so the guinea pig cannot eat the glue.

Timeline: of Experimental/Procedure
Ja, Baifern
Flowchart of procedure with timeline

Tasks Date

Working on the proposal outline 22 April - 1 May 2017

Working on the proposal 2-8 May 2017

Finding the materials 9-10 May 2017

Start building the maze 11-15 May 2017

Test our experiment 16-22 May 2017

Working on the video 22-25 May 2017

Data Collections and Limitations: Jinny

What are some limitation of your design? How will data be collected?

According to Yang and Crawley bury food test, they stated that the food deprived mice

normally will find food within 1 minute and in their experiment, they set the limited of times(12

minutes) for their deprived food mice. However, in the guinea pig running maze project, the

guinea pig will not deprived food. So, the time in measuring the guinea pig running maze will

extended to 30 minutes each. In the experiment, one of the guinea pig will run the maze that have

no food at the exit and the other one will run the maze with the food at the exit. If the guinea pig

cannot run the maze within 12 minutes, then that guinea pig result will record as failed.

This project faces many limitation. The guinea pig cant walk out from the maze, scaring of

people and the maze is too small for the guinea pig. And the way to collect the data is using
watch to timing the time that guinea pig walk in the maze.

Proposal Conclusion: Nene

"This experiment will help with the understanding of .____."

This experiment will help with the understanding of the guinea pig sense of the smell and

knowing about their foraging behavior.

McLeod, S. A. (2013). Tolman - Latent Learning. Retrieved from

www.simplypsychology.org/tolman.html