International Epilepsy Day is a global event celebrated annually on the second Monday in February. The initiative is organized by the International Bureau for Epilepsy and the International League Against Epilepsy to promote awareness on epilepsy right around the world.

For this special occasion we explored how Ugo Basile contributes to scientific research for epilepsy, helping to understand this neurological disorder that affects around 50 million people worldwide.

Much has happened since in 1957 Dunham and Miya published on Journal of the American Pharmacological Association the paper “A note on a simple apparatus for detecting neurological deficit in rats and mice”. That “simple apparatus” has been one of the most effective inventions in Animal Behavior with an incredible impact on science with more than 4,000 citations if searched on Google Scholar.

Exciting new research alert! Ugo Basile's Grip Strength Meter to find new therapeutic target in stroke related inflammation.

The three-chamber test is the classic test to assess social behavior and social memory in rodents. This may range from autism disease to dominance tests and social novelty. Additional applications include sociability differences between genders, strains and any other variable, which may end up with a social preference.

The three-chamber sociability test has been used to assess social behaviour in mice with altered GTF2I levels, in order to evaluate the impact of GTF2I dosage on social interactions and preferences.