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hi Sciencebuddy
I am new and going to do my first science fair project. I have selected my project to determine effects of turmeric (curcumin) on Alzeihmer's disease using planaria and studying their memory curves using a T-maze.
Here are my questions:
What kind of data do I need to research to start with?
What type of materials would I require and where to get them?
How to proceed with my experiment? (step by step)
What are the controlled and variable factors in my experiment?
What type of precautions are required?
I am totally novice and do not have any clue whatsoever. Please help me. I know conditioning of planaria is required and it will take many trials and I have due date in October 2014. So plenty of time.
Please guide me on this journey.
need help to start with science project
Moderators: AmyCowen, kgudger, bfinio, MadelineB, Moderators
-
radhika
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Thu May 22, 2014 1:35 pm
- Occupation: student
- Project Question: using planaria see the effects of curcumin on memory curves. To do this project, I want to have an idea about how to condition them for direction, what all materials are required and how to proceed and what are the controlled and variable parameters in experiments.
- Project Due Date: October 8th 2014
- Project Status: I am just starting
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SciB
- Expert
- Posts: 2071
- Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2013 7:00 am
- Occupation: Retired molecular biologist, university researcher and teacher
- Project Question: I wish to join Scibuddies to be able to help students achieve the best science project possible and to understand the science behind it.
- Project Due Date: n/a
- Project Status: Not applicable
Re: need help to start with science project
Hi Radhika and welcome to Scibuddies. You have chosen an interesting and ambitious project and I hope we can steer you along to a successful conclusion.
First off, if you haven’t already done so, you should read the scibuddies project guide: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml
This will answer most of your questions about researching the topic before you start, choosing a workable hypothesis, designing experiments to test the hypothesis, deciding on the dependent and independent variables and appropriate controls, making your experiments statistically meaningful, interpreting the data and presenting it.
From your email it sounds like you have decided to test the efficacy of curcumin as a preventive of memory loss due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). As a scientist you could do a clinical trial of curcumin on human volunteers and this would give you the most direct evidence of whether it prevents or stops AD. Such trials can be very expensive and often need 100s if not 1000s of subjects to obtain statistically relevant results. As an alternative, a researcher often uses an animal model such as a mouse that has been genetically modified to develop AD since normal mice don’t get the disease.
You said you planned to use planaria to determine the effects of curcumin on memory in planaria so I did a search on PubMed for planaria and Alzheimers but did not find any published papers. Doing a google search I found one reference to planaria used to determine the effects of aspartame on conditioned animals:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... Wc&cad=rja
Planaria can be purchased online and are fairly simple to do experiments with. The method of conditioning described in the reference above uses a light and an electric shock and requires that you build some apparatus, but that would not be a problem for someone handy with tools.
Check out the Sciencebuddies project on the effects of a magnet on regeneration of planaria. This project has information on finding wild planaria, feeding them and keeping them alive:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ml#summary
The other thing I would like to mention is the importance of the source of curcumin that you use for the test. You can buy purified curcuminoids from Sigma/Aldrich or other chemical companies (expensive) or you can use a curcumin supplement from a store (inexpensive). The main problem with curcumin is that it is not very soluble in water. This means that the curcumin might not be able to get into the brain cells or neurons of the planarian to protect them from damage. Drug researchers have been working on ways to make curcumin more soluble in water and I would suggest using one of these chemical versions for your experiments:
https://www.google.com/#q=water-soluble ... afe=active
One question I have for you is, assuming that your hypothesis will be that curcumin can prevent or cure AD, how did you plan to cause AD in planaria? I know how to do this in mice but not in a flatworm. In the project I cited above, aspartame was found to cause about 50% memory loss in conditioned planaria. Maybe curcumin could prevent this memory loss. You could treat some of the planaria with curcumin in their water and leave others untreated as a control. Then you would add aspartame, wait a certain length of time and measure the response of the worms to the light. If curcumin prevents the memory loss due to aspartame then these worms should perform better on the test than those that got no curcumin.
I have given you a lot of information. Think about what you want to do and how you want to do it, then get back to us with more questions and we will guide you in designing and conducting a great project.
Scibee
First off, if you haven’t already done so, you should read the scibuddies project guide: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml
This will answer most of your questions about researching the topic before you start, choosing a workable hypothesis, designing experiments to test the hypothesis, deciding on the dependent and independent variables and appropriate controls, making your experiments statistically meaningful, interpreting the data and presenting it.
From your email it sounds like you have decided to test the efficacy of curcumin as a preventive of memory loss due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). As a scientist you could do a clinical trial of curcumin on human volunteers and this would give you the most direct evidence of whether it prevents or stops AD. Such trials can be very expensive and often need 100s if not 1000s of subjects to obtain statistically relevant results. As an alternative, a researcher often uses an animal model such as a mouse that has been genetically modified to develop AD since normal mice don’t get the disease.
You said you planned to use planaria to determine the effects of curcumin on memory in planaria so I did a search on PubMed for planaria and Alzheimers but did not find any published papers. Doing a google search I found one reference to planaria used to determine the effects of aspartame on conditioned animals:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... Wc&cad=rja
Planaria can be purchased online and are fairly simple to do experiments with. The method of conditioning described in the reference above uses a light and an electric shock and requires that you build some apparatus, but that would not be a problem for someone handy with tools.
Check out the Sciencebuddies project on the effects of a magnet on regeneration of planaria. This project has information on finding wild planaria, feeding them and keeping them alive:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ml#summary
The other thing I would like to mention is the importance of the source of curcumin that you use for the test. You can buy purified curcuminoids from Sigma/Aldrich or other chemical companies (expensive) or you can use a curcumin supplement from a store (inexpensive). The main problem with curcumin is that it is not very soluble in water. This means that the curcumin might not be able to get into the brain cells or neurons of the planarian to protect them from damage. Drug researchers have been working on ways to make curcumin more soluble in water and I would suggest using one of these chemical versions for your experiments:
https://www.google.com/#q=water-soluble ... afe=active
One question I have for you is, assuming that your hypothesis will be that curcumin can prevent or cure AD, how did you plan to cause AD in planaria? I know how to do this in mice but not in a flatworm. In the project I cited above, aspartame was found to cause about 50% memory loss in conditioned planaria. Maybe curcumin could prevent this memory loss. You could treat some of the planaria with curcumin in their water and leave others untreated as a control. Then you would add aspartame, wait a certain length of time and measure the response of the worms to the light. If curcumin prevents the memory loss due to aspartame then these worms should perform better on the test than those that got no curcumin.
I have given you a lot of information. Think about what you want to do and how you want to do it, then get back to us with more questions and we will guide you in designing and conducting a great project.
Scibee
-
radhika
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Thu May 22, 2014 1:35 pm
- Occupation: student
- Project Question: using planaria see the effects of curcumin on memory curves. To do this project, I want to have an idea about how to condition them for direction, what all materials are required and how to proceed and what are the controlled and variable parameters in experiments.
- Project Due Date: October 8th 2014
- Project Status: I am just starting
Re: need help to start with science project
Thank you so much science buddy.
This information should get me started on my project and with added information about aspartame really helped me in how to proceed with project.
I will get started with research work first that is studying planaria and its nervous system and as much information I can find so that it will help me understand and reply to any questions by interviewers later on.
I will keep in touch and ask more questions along the way.
This information should get me started on my project and with added information about aspartame really helped me in how to proceed with project.
I will get started with research work first that is studying planaria and its nervous system and as much information I can find so that it will help me understand and reply to any questions by interviewers later on.
I will keep in touch and ask more questions along the way.