regular and complex ACtivity wheels

Apparatus

We propose regular and complex activity wheels per racks of 8, in order to quickly test a large amount of animals at the same time.

Our rack of 8 activity wheels comprises:

• a mobile aluminum structure (covered in PVC removable plates) forming a rack of 8 boxes
• a controllable houselight, with a trough and a bottle, allow long-lasting experiments
• an electronic interface that provides the formatting of signals from infrared sensors and allows communication with the computer.

The characteristic of the complex wheels is the opportunity to easily remove one or several bars in order to modulate the difficulty of running.

Software

The software can manage several racks of 8 activity wheels. Each apparatus remains independent.

Our software:

• records every 1/16th of a round and distinguishes the rotation direction
• displays the activity of the wheels on a graph
• experiment duration: from 1 minute to several days

A software module allows calculating:

• the distance traveled
• the locomotor activity in each direction of rotation
• the kinetics of activity per customized time unit

All the results are displayed in a Microsoft Excel compatible datasheet.