Mice operant behavior system 80870

for behavioral researchfor animal researchbenchtop

DETAILS The automated mouse reaching chamber allows researchers to simultaneously measure motor behavior, cognitive processing and motivation. The two chamber design allows you to test two animals at the same time. Use the 80875 Home Cage Training Hopper to facilitate training. Most labs add the 86060 Counter with Digital Display for a simple count of reach attempts. However, the counter could be connected to an AWM Interface for placing reach attempts in time bins, or the photo beams could be connected directly to an ABET Interface Package to time stamp and count reach events. With the chamber divider removed, and additional stimulus lamps, feeders etc. the reach task could be combined with a learned alternation task under ABET program control. Motor Behavior: Skilled forepaw reaching behaviors are required to retrieve pellets from the food hopper. The gap between the pellet hopper and chamber discourages "scooping" behavior and encourages pellet grasping. Infrared recording accurately quantifies reach attempts as well as latency. Reach attempts exceeding the number of pellets removed from the hopper indicates unsuccessful attempts. Pellets removed or scooped from the hopper but dropped outside of the chamber into a drop pan indicate pellets grasped but not retrieved. Pellets that drop through the grid-floor into the waste pan indicate pellets successfully retrieved but not eaten.