Mouse Behavioral Phenotyping Services & Pricing

The core is currently equipped to test a variety of behaviors in mice, ranging from anxiety to sociability. These include social interaction, social novelty, social communication, general activity (including repetitive behaviors), anxiety (elevated-plus maze, open-field chamber, and dark/light box exploration), depression (force-swim test and tail-suspension test), cognitive task (novel object recognition, Y-maze, Pavlovian fear conditioning, etc), startle response (acoustic- or shock-induced), sucrose preference (anhedonia test), and others.

Please consult with Rachel D. Penrod-Martin and core staff (mbpc@musc.edu) regarding experimental design, feasibility, and expected outcomes of proposed behavior test, as well as to reserve equipment and schedule training.

Fee Structure

Process

Consult Meeting

Develop experimental design with the core director

Design Write-up

Prepare written summary of assays, including literature and statistics

Training and/or Service

Core trains investigator lab members and/or provides technician to complete experiments

Final Data and Follow-up

Core aids in data visualization and analysis, summary information for manuscript preparation

Behavior Tests Available

Activity

• Detailed Locomotor Activity
• General Locomotor Activity

Social-Related

• 3-chamber Social Interaction Test
• Open Field Social Interaction Test
• Conditioned Place Preference
• Juvenile Vocalizations (USVs) - distress
• Adult Vocalizations (USVs) - social

Cognition

• Pavlovian Fear Conditioning
• Contextual Fear Conditioning
• Fear Potentiated Startle
• Y-maze
• Barnes Maze
• Novel Object Recognition (NOR)
• Morris Water Maze
• 5-choice

Anxiety

• Elevated Plus Maze (EPM)
• Elevated O-Maze (EOM)
• Marble Burying
• Dark/Light Box Exploration
• Open Field Test

Depression

• Forced-Swim Test
• Sucrose Preference

Sensorimotor Analysis

• Pre-Pulse Inhibition (PPI)
• Shock Sensitivity
• Acoustic Startle