Overview
Rodents have an innate aversion to brightly, illuminated areas and their tendency to spontaneously explore novel environments makes the light/dark box test an easy to use apparatus that requires no prior training of the animals. The light/dark test is useful in predicting anxiolytic like or anxiogenic like activity in mice or rats. It has been shown that anxious animals will move to the dark side more quickly and will move away from the dark side less often than those animals without an anxiety trait. Hence, more time on the light side indicates decreased anxiety.
The Fusion system can generate data based on multiple independent Zones within a given cage. A Dark Enclosure is placed at the rear of the Monitor.The Fusion Software is used to divide the cage into 2 equal Zones marked Light and Dark. Data such as Side Changes, Light and Dark Distance Travelled, Horizontal Activity, Time Spent, Movement Time, Rest Time, Vertical Activity and Latency can be measured and recorded.
The Dark Enclosure
The Dark Enclosure has holes on all 4 sides to allow the Beams in the Horizontal and Vertical sensors to monitor the Animal’s Activity.
The Mouse Dark Enclosure measures – 16″ L x 8″ H x 5″ W with an animal entry opening of 4″ x 1.25″.
The Rat Dark Enclosure measures – 16″ L x 8″ H x 8″ W with an animal entry opening of 4″ x 2.50″.
