Operant & Behavior Modular System

Presentation

Our Modular Operant Chamber is an entirely modular experimental enclosure designed to conduct operant conditioning procedures (e.g. food reinforcement, DMTS, conflict tests, self-administration…) on rodents (rats or mice). A large variety of modules offering different possibilities for manipulation, cues and triggers is available to adapt the system to your research protocol. Advanced configuration and protocol control can be achieved using the available software. Contact us for a tailor-made solution matching your specific need!

Operating principle

The operant chamber is made in an entirely modular structure which allows complete disassembling or rearrangement to build a new space of different dimensions/components or to enable storage in the minimum space. It can be easily transformed from rat chamber to mice chamber (or vice versa) with a reduced cost.

A frontal door offers a total accessibility inside the chamber. Walls and cover can be of different material or colour, since they are totally removable.

Each chamber is associated with a Link Box which provides power to up to 8 (expandable to 16) Operant Modules (levers, lights, sound, dispensers, electrical shock...) conferring to the chambers a full autonomy.

The Cages can be equipped with a Weigh Transducer in order to record activity or freezing.

Research protocole examples

Food-motivated operant conditioning test Progressive-ratio (PR) schedules permit studying food-motivated behavior. These schedules require an increasing number of operant responses to obtain successive rewards within a session. For example, a typical PR 5 schedule requires five responses to produce the first reinforcer, and the response requirement is incremented by five each time a reinforcer is earned. The breaking point, defined as the highest ratio completed is a classical measure reflecting the efficacy or motivational strength of food, and is increased in response to food-deprivation or reward high palatability.

Self-administration test Self administration is a classical model of human drug-taking behavior and consists in establishing in rodents an operant conditioning of an instrumental response (nose-poke, lever pressure) to obtain a reward, according to a fix or progressive ratio. Self administration is a standard paradigm for studying the acute rewarding properties of drugs, the development of habitual drug-seeking behaviors, and ultimately, addiction. Moreover, this method can be used to assess the abuse potential of drugs.

Geller Seifter test The Geller-Seifter paradigm is a conflict model in which prior food-deprived rodents have to “choose” between consuming food and avoiding the punishment associated with this consumption. Basically, periods of responding by lever pressing to get sweetened condensed milk on a variable interval schedule are interrupted by periods where, in the presence of a signal, reward can be obtained more frequently but are accompanied by mild footshocks. Levels of punished responding are inversely proportional to the level of anxiety. Then, in this context, the shock-induced reduction of reward seeking can be reversed by administration of anxiolytics.

Parameters Measured • Number of responses (LE 85XCT) • Number of reinforcements (LE 85XCT) • And many user-defined parameters (see PackWin software) Key features • Entirely modular system • Easily transformed from rat to mice chamber • Reduced number of cables • Possibility of customization • Up to 8 stations can be connected at once to PC through a single cable

Domains of application • Anxiety • Drug screening • Phenotyping • Anhedonia • Drug dependence • Alcohol dependence • and much more...