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HomeCage Plus
Developed for fear conditioning, applicable for a wide range of behavioral experiments.

Traditional fear conditioning methods require frequent handling of the animals. That affects the measurement of fear-related parameters such as behavioral and physiological responses. We therefore developed a fully automated home cage environment to explore the dynamics of fear responses in deliberate and motivated choice situations.

 
 
 
 
HomeCage Plus consists of a home compartment and an attached novel compartment. Both are separated by an automatically operated sliding door. To investigate short- and long-term memory, a separation of compartments is crucial and exploits the inborn novelty-seeking behavior of mice at predefined times after training. Mouse behavior is monitored by two cameras using the Viewer tracking software. A software script, written by the scientist, controls the actions of the hardware in dependency of time or shown behaviors. This includes opening and closing of doors. For example in a an attached shock compartment, shock delivery is happens at specific times and/or depending on the position of the mouse in an operant fashion. This can be after an instrumental response such as entering the shock compartment. Or after an automatically given stimulus, like a sound. The behavior is monitored for several days throughout the light and dark phases and the video is stored digitally. To monitor spontaneous exploratory behavior during training and testing mice are not handled during the entire experiment. The HomeCage Plus system facilitates naturalistic-like behavior of mice in conflict situations. Those are characterized by trade-offs between avoidance and novelty-seeking (curiosity). Behavior quantification on long time scales based on deliberate choice is an outstanding feature of the HomeCage Plus system. novel compartment can be equipped with versatile add-on components. The system is designed to integrate any commercially available hardware. This approach avoids any unspecific interference by the experimenter and increases the replicability of findings.
Track example screen shot
 
track example • Home cage plus variable compartment
• Automatically operated door
• Two full resolution cameras, one merged video
• 24/7 video tracking
• Script controlled procedures
• Fully automated long-term monitoring of exploration and learning
• Animal controlled trial progress
• Increased reliability and reproducibility
• Explore the dynamics of spontaneous behavior with minimal intervention on long term scales!
We are just beginning to explore the many possibilities of this experimental approach with the HomeCage Plus and the initial results point to the following major benefits: Exploitation of naturalistic-like conditions to assess fear memory for days after e.g. a single shock exposure with minimal experimenter intervention Investigation of various aspects of fear learning: from training to long-term memory, extinction and latent inhibition Extension of behavioral observation by autonomic and electrophysiological measures on the basis of telemetry approaches Ultimately, the HomeCage Plus approach can be used to perform many different tests starting out from home cage conditions. The flexible design allows to integrate any commercial or customized hardware.
The hardware
  homecage-plus-hardware
An example script
 
script example Flexible Experiment Control
For the automated experiment control we developed a script Plug-In for our Viewer tracking software. It enables the experimenter to design complex and flexible experiment procedures by combining wait times with duration and event (behavior) conditions. Fulfilled conditions can trigger a hardware device like a shocker, or initiate a jump to another position in the script. Determined by the scientist’s script, the cage can respond to the animal’s behavior in a complex and suitable way.
The screen shot on the left shows the first part of a script routine that was used in a series of fear conditioning experiments. After a definable time (#0) the door is opened with a TTL pulse (#1). The door stays open till the animal enters the shock compartment voluntarily (#2). When the door is closed (#3) a validation is done to prove that the animal is still in the shock compartment (#4). After another definable time (#5), the shock is applied (#6). the animal can move back to the home cage compartment.
The Plug-In offers you a superior variability and flexibility in experimental procedures. Using the intuitive user interface you can build scripts that control the peripheral hardware. You can generate and play sound files and thus perform conditioning experiments without the need of expensive additional hardware or software. Once the experiment has started, the Viewer software keeps you informed about the progress of your experiment via network messages or even Twitter© what enables you to monitor your behavioral research remotely. Some of the numerous script options.
     
 
 
If you have questions concerning this product, please don´t hesitate to use the following e-mail address:
info@biobserve.com

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