Party Animals

If all you know about drugs and brains involves a frying pan and an egg, these mice have something to teach you. Mouse Party, an interactive online educational activity released 20 years ago, has taught a generation about the neuroscience of drugs acting on the brain in a clear, engaging way—racking up more than 1.2 million pageviews in 2025 alone. It’s one of hundreds of activities produced by the Stark Science Learning Center (SSLC, formerly the Genetic Science Learning Center), in the U’s Department of Biochemistry.

The concept for Mouse Party came from teachers. In 2003, with a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the SSLC gathered a group of teachers to hear from experts on addiction and help design impactful activities for classrooms. The center’s creative team turned one of the teachers’ ideas into Mouse Party.

Users control an animated gloved hand to reach into a terrarium containing seven mice—each under the influence of a different drug, from marijuana to LSD—and bring each mouse to a brain scanner. The scanner shows an animation explaining how the drugs affect brain chemistry.

Teachers liked that Mouse Party focused on the science of drug use without judgment. It also gave students a new perspective. “They really didn’t understand that drugs were making changes in your brain,” says Louisa Stark, director emerita and namesake of the SSLC. “Mouse Party helped students understand that concept.”

It wasn’t long before people from all around the world started writing to say how much they appreciated Mouse Party. The center still gets those comments today.

Molly Malone, a senior instructional designer, provided the original voiceover for Mouse Party. She says it’s one of the center’s most recognizable products. “Even to this day, when I’m out at conferences or giving workshops or interacting with teachers, I almost always get someone shouting out ‘Mouse Party! You’re the Mouse Party people!’ ”

Try Mouse Party for yourself.