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Purpose
To monitor the anxiety-related behaviour of mice in a two-chambered light-dark arena over a defined period of time in order to assess the anxiety phenotype.
Experimental Design
Procedure
1. Light levels are set so that the light intensity within the light arena is between 100 – 200 lux and the dark arena is at 4-7 lux. Light metering is performed at the start of each test day.
2. The method of recording is set up with each arena defined. The light arena is approximately one third to half of entire chamber.
3. One mouse is placed in each light arena and recording is started.
4. A minimum of 5 minute should be recorded up to a maximum of 20 minutes.
5. At the end of the trial, the mice are removed from the arena and returned to their home cages.
6. The chambers are cleaned with disinfectant between mice to decontaminate and remove scent cues from previously tested mice.
7. Analysis of the recording is done to measure the activity of each mouse in each of the two zones and the number of transitions between zones.
Notes
Local data processing may be implemented to calculate derived measures from this data.
Data QC
Local QC data to assure all data fields have recorded data. In the case all data fields have a value of 0 that particular mouse data will be removed.
1. Verify the total time of each run