Rats voluntarily contact a thermal or a mechanical stimulator with their vibrissal pad in order to access a food reward. No shaving is required, thus making the test not invasive at all.
This innovative approach permits the parallel measurement of highly integrated nociceptive responses to thermal or mechanical stimulation.
Metrics obtained are the duration of feeding and the number of feeding attempts, measured by interruption of an infrared barrier traversing the opening to the reward. Feeding duration and number of attempts are strongly dependent on changes in the applied thermal or mechanical stimulus.
The ORO-Software included as standard collects and records data from up to 16 cages: Data are shown in real-time both as numeric summary results and in a graphic format. Data are automatically analyzed across time according to an adjustable time window, independently viewable for each of the 16 cages. The results of all the tests are available in a spreadsheet format which can easily be copied to other programs for further analysis.
Adaptors for Mice are available.