Training Lab

Training Lab is a brain anatomy training game for students and scientists. It provides simulated experience with rat and mouse brains and tissues, allowing you to practise anatomy studies without sacrificing real animals. The training can be used at any place and time, at low cost.

Brain anatomy studies

The game focuses on rodents because rat and mouse brains share structures and connectivity with human brains. It presents rodent brain study as a tool for researching human brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and schizophrenia. The description states that human and rat brain genes are 90% identical, and that rodents have been used as models for human disease studies.

Brain and tissue experiences

You can explore these rat brain and tissue subjects:

• Rat brain tissue
• Rat brain
• Rat whole brain
• Right hemisphere of the rat brain
• Hippocampus tissue
• Rat at 18–20 days of pregnancy
• Rat pup at postnatal day 0–1

Practise tissue isolation

You can practise working with adult mouse brains, mouse pups and mouse brain tissue before handling real rodent models. The training covers isolating specific tissues, a technique described as difficult and requiring time and practice. It highlights the hippocampus and cerebral cortex as brain regions associated with neuronal death in mild and severe cases of Alzheimer’s disease, respectively.