Medical software MAZESOFT-8

laboratoryfor animal researchfor control

Complete and easy-to-use software for monitoring radial maze experiments, using photo-electrical cells technology for animal (rat or mouse) position detection Presentation MAZESOFT-8 is a complete and easy-to-use software for monitoring radial maze experiments. It has been specially designed to work with the BIOSEB radial maze apparatus equipped with rows of infrared photocells for the automated detection of animal position. The software allows for the full control of the arm doors either manually (by means of a button panel in the computer screen) or automatically, when a trained subject is being tested. Operating principle MAZESOFT-8 allows the user setting any of the standard protocols for the study of working and reference memory in laboratory animals (rats or mice). The protocols are easy to configure, the user only have to enter some important parameters: designation of the baited arms, conditions to stop the experiments, time-interval between each trial, doors monitoring mode, criterion for considering the arm visited… Each protocol configuration can be saved and opened for use when necessary. A “trial header” can be use for recording all the necessary information associated with the current experiment (code of trial, experimenter, challenge, dose, subject identification, comments). In MAZESOFT-8, the maze is virtually divided into 17 sections: 8 equally sized arms (each one divided into proximal and distal section) and a central area. One experiment can be composed of several trials, depending on the number of experimental groups and animals per group used in the study.