KNOSYS

The MOUSE PAD: Test Equipment Specifically Designed for MICE


Burgeoning research on genetically targeted mice has created a demand for assessing behavior in transgenic mice. Most scientists engaged in genetic studies have had little or no experience in conducting behavioral experiments and standard automated tasks for assessing behavior in mice have not been widely available commercially.

KNOSYS now offers a series of simple test chambers for mice. We eschew time consuming and idiosyncratic methods that are difficult to implement and do not lend themselves to automated data collection. In their place KNOSYS offers test chambers to assess several of the most reliable and useful measures of learning in mice:
Activity and Passive Avoidance: The 4-Plate Box

Short-term memory: The Step-Thu Box

Operant discrimination: The Mouse Operant Chamber

The 4-Plate box is used to measure activity. Crossings from one plate to another are detected by touch-sensitive circuits. Punishing plate crossing by a brief electric shock provides a test for Passive Avoidance. The 4-Plate test is widely used in psychopharmacological studies, is simple, requires no training and yields highly reliable results.

The Step-Through box is a simple 1-trial conditioning test used widely to assess the effects of drugs, electroconvulsive shock and other treatments on short-term memory. The test cannot be automated but the test chamber is offered by KNOSYS because the 1-trial conditioning test is probably the best and most widely used task for assessing short-term memory in the mouse.

The KNOSYS Mouse Operant Chamber.
This mouse-sized 'Skinner Box' is designed for standard operant conditioning studies of schedules of reinforcement and sensory discrimination with mice. It is fitted with a removable 'intelligence panel' containing a sensitive manipulandum (3 gram operating pressure) or nose poke port for measuring responses, signal light, magnetic buzzer and liquid delivery system. The chamber and the KNOSYS digital interface provide a complete operant test system for mice.