Tail Suspension Test - Wireless

Fully automatic
Painless, 'tape' technique

Bioseb's Tail Suspension Cages

Presentation

The tail-suspension test was developed as an alternative to the Porsolt Forced Swimming test, and is based on a similar concept. Mice, suspended by their tail using a piece of tape (a painless method), innately attempt to escape from this adversive situation. However, following failed attempts to escape, they experience a kind of despair and become immobile. The magnitude of immobility is considered to be correlated with the depressive-like state of the subjects and is significantly decreased by antidepressants. The Tail Suspension Test was described in the 80's by Steru & al. and allows for fast evaluation of drugs' (anti-depressants, sedatives) psychotropic effects, making it a classic and painless research test for anxiety and depression.

BIOSEB' Tail Suspension Test system is the only full automatic test in the world!. It is based on the original “ITEMATIC-TST” described by Steru in 1987, it uses both strain gauges and video backup recording, and does not induce any pain in the animal: the mouse’s tail is simply stuck to the sensor using a piece of tape.

The original ITEMATIC design has been modified, adapted and improved for the Porsolt and Partners Pharmacology Co in the 2000. It can hold 3 mice in three separate compartments and features adjustable floor height and anti climbing plates for C57 strain mice.

The Bioseb Tail Suspension Test instrument offers unique features such as the randomization process of the animals, the measurement of up to 6 animals in the same run, the direct computations of the 'Immobility', the 'Energy' and the 'Power in Motion'. Settings are available to adjust the definitions to the user's protocol. The energy value is a unique way to differentiate between passive swinging and active struggling. The power in motion is an additional discriminating calculation that gives an indication of the strength of the mice.

How does it work?

Painless tape-based fixation

The measuring principle is based on the quantity of movements that a mouse trying to escape from its suspension can generate. During the Tail Suspension Test, the movements of the mice are analyzed in terms of activity (active/non active), energy and power developed over time. As human observation is time consuming and tedious, Bioseb's Tail Suspension Test (TST) automates the entire experiment.

The operator prepares his pieces of tape to suspend mice and the home cages with mice to be tested. When the whole experiment has been setup in the software and the list of animals randomized, the operator suspends each single mouse according to the randomization shown on the screen. Each channel is started individually by pressing a specific key on the computer so that each mouse is suspended the same amount of time (something impossible with a system based solely on video).

When the run is finished, mice are removed and the operator is prompted to suspend the next batch of mice. After the experiment, the whole batch can be analyzed and statistics on averages minimums, maximums and standard deviations are computed in seconds as is individual performance. Data is also presented within minutes for both the groups and individual animals (mice).

The TST-SOFT generates graphics that can be exported as a bmp image for further presentations.

Supplied with

• One or two sets of three cages together with power supplies and USB cables as needed.
• 1 software license (USB dongle with product ID tag)
• Optional HD USB camera and its tripod and USB cable