Fear Conditioning System
Open Field with Freeze Monitoring
Stimulus Hub
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Fear Conditioning System
Open Field with Freeze Monitoring
Stimulus Hub
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Stimulus Hub

The Stimulus Hub is a system designed to test animal responses to anxiety-inducing stimuli (light, sound, and shock) while tracking movement through integration with the Fusion system. It can run tests on up to 16 animals at once, with programmable intensity, duration, and sequence for each stimulus. The system measures latency in response to stimuli, including movement and rearing. Each experiment consists of multiple “repetitions” of light, sound, and shock events, with customizable parameters for timing, intensity, and order. The software analyzes the response times and movement during the tests.

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Description

Overview

The Stimulus Hub is a system designed to gauge animal responses to anxiety inducing stimuli. The system is capable of sending three different kinds of stimuli; light, sound and shock,. Moreover, because of the integration with the Fusion system, it is capable of tracking the animals’ movement as the stimuli are activated.

Hardware Requirements

  • Open Field activity monitor
  • Stimulus Hub with shock generator
  • Stimulus Lid with speaker and LED light
  • Test Cage with Shock Tray

Components

The system can run tests on 16 animals simultaneously. Each test chamber includes a sound stimulus (10 to 20,000 Hz pure sine tone), light stimulus, multi-pole scrambled foot shocker, open field activity monitor and ventilated sound proof box(optional). Duration and Intensity of all 3 stimuli as well as the stimuli sequence can be programmed via the Stimulus Profile Generator.

Measuring Latency

Experiments containing stimulus events can be analyzed using the stimulus event file. This analysis contains, among other things, latency variables.
The Fusion software determines latencies to locomotor activity, ambulation, and rearing.

Latencies are measured from the start and end of each stimulus event. If no movement is detected before the end of the repetition, the latency will be blank.

Designer

The experiment is divided into one or more “Repetitions” which each consist of a light, sound, and shock event. In the fear conditioning paradigm, the shock event must follow the light and sound events (pre-pulse) in each repetition. Light and Sound can occur in any order. Some of the parameters included are:
light delay,intensity and duration ;
sound delay,intensity, duration and frequency ;
shock delay,intensity and duration ;
repetition count and more.
The Inter Repetition Period can be Fixed or Randomly variable.

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