The sucrose preference test is designed to assess an animal’s responsiveness to natural reward, and a lack of sensitivity to this reward is suggested to model anhedonia (Monteggia et al., 2007). The animals are given a choice between water and a 1% sucrose water solution for 48-hours. The movement of the animals is tracked in space and time, and the amount of water and sucrose solution is measured.
Feeding Experimentation Device version 3 (FED3): FED3 is a smart pellet dispensing device for home-cage training of mice in operant tasks.
We have 12 FED3 devices. FED3 is a wireless, battery-powered device designed for home-cage training of mice in operant tasks. Mice interact with FED3 through two nose-pokes and FED3 responds to the mice by delivering pellets, visual stimuli (lights), and auditory stimuli (tones). FED3 has an analog output that allows it to synchronize with and control external equipment such as optogenetic stimulation or fiber photometry recordings. FED3 can be programmed to assess food intake, motivation, and operant learning in mice.
Automated Sippers: These are wireless devices for measuring how mice interact with liquid rewards in their homecages
We have 8 Automated Sipper devices. These sippers were designed in the Creed lab at Wash U, and contain two sipper tubes that can be filled with 15mL each of distinct liquids to measure preference and patterns of interaction with them. For instance, one tube may contain sucrose while the other contains water for measuring sucrose preference. The sippers are battery powered and wireless, and are suitable for home-cage monitoring of liquid interactions.