Elevated Plus Maze : EPM3C - 3 clicks only !

Presentation

EPM3C - System overview

The Elevated Plus-Maze is a commonly used test to assess anxiety-like behavior in laboratory animals (rats/mice). Based on the natural fear that rodents have for height and open spaces, the Elevated Plus Maze is a general research tool in neurobiological anxiety field and usually uses to screen the efficacy of drugs.

The Elevated-Plus-Maze (EPM) is one of the very first tests used by neuroscientists to evaluate anxiety-like behavior in rodents and the most widely used test after the Open Field to evaluate anxiolitic or anxiogenic effects. The EPM could also be considered among other various other tests for the screening of mice strains. The EPM can also be used to assess side effects of psychiatric disorders treatments.

Bioseb proposes an all-inclusive solution for the Elevated-Plus-Maze (EPM) test with hardware and software components.

Video tracking is a very good way to automate the Elevated-Plus-Maze (EPM) test for rats and mice, which is the the reason why we have designed a dedicated software application, the EPM-3C, to run any EPM protocols (compatible with hardware from Bioseb or other brands), based on a powerful video tracking system. The zone transition is matched perfectly with the manual scoring by using specific morphologic detection. The tracking zones (open/closed arms, center) are really easy to define and once they are, the software is optimized to be setup easily and starts with just three clicks, in order to assist, speed up and simplify your experiments.

The Bioseb EPM Software gives all the information you need from your EPM experiment and most of the parameters are computed in real-time.

Regarding the hardware, Bioseb has designed its EPM test for mice and rats according to the standard dimensions widely used in the field. The corridors of the Bioseb Elevated-Plus-Maze are made in high quality perpex, so that the material will not retain odors. Their light grey, non-reflective color makes them ideal to combine with video-tracking. Finally, the assembly of the equipment has been made really easy.

Tripod and industrial quality camera are also provided so you can start your experiments rapidly.

Operating principle

EPM3C - Rat exploring - Close-up

The new EPM-3C solution from BIOSEB features unprecedented simplicity to run ELEVATED + MAZE protocols.

The test setting consists of a plus-shaped apparatus with two open and two enclosed arms, each with an open roof and elevated from the floor. The aversion of the rodents to open spaces leads into a restriction of movement to the enclosed arms.

Anxiety of rodents is directly linked to the proportion of time spent in closed arms versus the time spent in open arms. The more anxious the animals, the more time they spend in the closed arms.

To start the test, the animal is usually placed in the center zone of the maze and the duration of the experiment is generally about 5 minutes. The time spent in the various arms is the main data recorded during this test. The Bioseb software also gives the total number of entries in the various arms (open, closed and center), the global activity of the animal (calculated with the total distance of the animal during the test) and the latency of the first entrance to the open arm.

Your results can then be exported into Excel tables for further analysis.

Supplied with :

The instrument comes with a maze, a camera, a USB cable, a boom stand and a software license.