Behavioral Phenotyping Core

Mission

The mission of the Northwestern University Behavioral Phenotyping Core is to make available to funded research projects a facility to determine the behavioral effects of genetic manipulations, potential pharmaceuticals, aging, and other manipulations upon normal behavior, and the learning and memory capacities of rodents used as model systems.  The BPC will also work with PIs to gather pilot data for new applications.

Services Offered

• Consultations
  • Research planning
  • Research design
  • Animal protocols
  • NIH grant documents: Resources and Methods
• Services
  • Testing: behavioral, cognitive, sensory/motor
  • Training
  • Surgery
• Tests
  • Water maze: test of spatial memory
  • Zero maze: test for anxiety
  • Y maze: test for memory (spontaneous alternation)
  • Open field: test of general activity and anxiety
  • Object recognition / social recognition: test for declarative memory
  • Eyeblink conditioning: test for forebrain and/or cerebellar dependent associative memory
  • Fear conditioning: test for emotional memory (amygdala and hippocampal function)
  • DigiGait: computerized gait analysis system
  • Rotorod: test of motor coordination
  • Temperature sensitivity: computerized heat threshold detection
  • Tactile sensitivity: von Frey probes

Click for more information on available tests

Click for Pricing

Acknowledgment

All manuscripts and grants presenting work supported by this core should include the following acknowledgement:

"This work was supported by the Northwestern University Behavioral Phenotyping Core."