USES : locomotor activity , reactivity to novelty , usual mechanism , exploratory behaviour , anxiogenic effects, sedative effects, circadian rhythms...

 Rat

 Mice

I°) Apparatus :
* A metalic built ( with some detachable PVC partitions ) forms a rack of 8 box .
* Rack dimensions : height , width , depth : 1m80 , 1 m , 0,6 m.
* Each box is composed of : a sliding floor, a detachable cage , infra-red captors.
 
This rack is connected to an electronic interface, which permits the communication with the computer.
II°) Software: 
The software for windows permits to manage 2 racks of 8 cages that is to say 16 activity meters. Cages can be started and stopped together or independently.
 
* animal graphical follow-up (see below),
* data storage by time units that you can parameter (1 sec < time unit < many hours),
* record duration : from 1 minute to many days,
* data : front, back, locomotor and vertical activity ( AV,AR,VV,R)
 
software for windows
A cage representation on the screen
 
- On the top right: On/Off button for the cage and the pause button.
- On the top left: animal label list and the counter "experiment duration".
- In the middle in yellow, cage graphic representation.
- Animal graphic representation = ellipse( white ) , rearings are represented by a grey circle (like in the example above) .
- On each side of the graphic representation are standing the activity counters (front, back, backward and forward motion, rearings).
 
 
* Moreover, the system is sold with a program which permits to manage recorded experiments. It permits notably to combine your files so as to compare results and to gain disk space. The output variables' presentations and their kinetics can be visualised either with whatever software which accepts the text format (Notepad, Wordpad, Word...) or with EXCEL.
III°) Options:
 
In option you can connect our activity meter to the Stanford Chronobiology Kit in order to study circadian rhythms.
Thanks to our interface between our system and the Stanford system(see below)...
...you can extract even more data variables to study chronobiology.