The Morphing Context :  An innovative system for fear conditioning without animal handling 

The problem :

One main technical obstacle that hindered our ability to identify the neurophysiologic circuits of contextual fear discrimination was that physically moving the rodent from one context to another would introduce a variety of non-specific neuronal activation that would be unrelated to contextual processing.

OptoPath answer :

To solve this issue, we developed, in collaboration with Imetronic, a very innovative apparatus: the Morphing Context.

With the Morphing Context we are able to remotely manipulate sensory elements of the context, such as visual, tactile, audio, and olfactory. When all sensory elements are displayed together they represent the threatening context; however, when we manipulate the presentation of these sensory elements we alter the contextual representation. Therefore, this apparatus allows us to record neurophysiologic activity while leaving the rodent undisturbed as it discriminates between fearful and non-fearful contexts. 

See video below for  details:

Contacts

optopath"at"u-bordeaux.fr

commercial "at" imetronic.com