It is beneficial for animals to live in groups rather than in single housing. Many behavioural diagnostic tests, however, require an individual animal to be alone while tested. Traditionally, this requires manually placing an animal from a home cage to the test arena and back. With the IDsorter connecting the home cage with a test arena, this process is fully automated. Our system can be interfaced to operant systems from other vendors or to video observation systems.
An integrated weighing scale allows the continuous monitoring of the animals’ health conditions.
References:
Kaixin Huang, Laura K Milton, Harry Dempsey, Stephen J Power, Kyna-Anne Conn, Zane B Andrews, Claire J Foldi (2023) “Rapid, automated and experimenter-free touchscreen testing reveals reciprocal interactions between cognitive flexibility and activity-based anorexia in female rats” eLife 12:e84961
The IDsorter is based on RFID-technology. It allows the selective passage of a single animal to the test arena and back, while individual experiments can be conducted in the operant chamber with independent experimental control software.
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology identifies and tracks an individual within a group of animals. All animals need to carry subcutaneous transponders. These transponders require no battery and are powered by the electro-magnetic fields emitted by the RFID-Readers.
Kaixin Huang, Laura K Milton, Harry Dempsey, Stephen J Power, Kyna-Anne Conn, Zane B Andrews, Claire J Foldi (2023). Rapid, automated and experimenter-free touchscreen testing reveals reciprocal interactions between cognitive flexibility and activity-based anorexia in female rats. eLife 12:e84961
Kaupert U, Thurley K, Frei K, Bagorda F, Schatz A, Tocker G, Rapoport S, Derdikman D, Winter Y. (2017). Spatial cognition in a virtual reality home-cage extension for freely moving rodents. J Neurophysiol. doi: 10.1152/jn.00630.2016.
Rivalan, M., Munawar, H., Fuchs, A., & Winter, Y. (2017). An automated, experimenter-free method for the standardised, operant cognitive testing of rats.” PloS one, 12(1), e0169476.
Front view of the IDsorter for rats
The group housing cage is placed to the left of the sorter. The individual access arena to the right.
General overview of the IDsorter for rats with removed sorter cage.
Sorter cage removed from the IDsorter. All parts that come in contact with the animals are removable and easy to clean.
IDsorter integrated with TouchscreenChamber for rats,
