Preclinical addiction research aim to uncover the complex interplay of brain mechanisms, genetic factors, and environmental influences that drive addiction.
A range of preclinical animal models (rodents, non-human primates) are used to study addiction-like behaviors, such as drug self-administration, conditioned place preference, and withdrawal responses. These models help in simulating aspects of human addiction, including craving, relapse, and withdrawal, and are crucial for testing potential therapeutic interventions.
Our digital telemetry systems provide real-time, high-resolution data on how addiction affects brain activity and physiological responses. They enable wireless, simultaneous monitoring of physiological endpoints in up to 32 single or group-housed subjects, with optional synchronized video, and are able to provide:
EEG : to understand neural changes during opioid withdrawal and assessing how treatments affect brain activity.
EMG: Opioids can cause profound muscle relaxation and sedation. During opioid withdrawal, individuals often experience physical symptoms such as muscle spasms, tremors, or hyperactivity. EMG allows researchers to quantify the degree of muscle relaxation and motor symptoms in preclinical models.
ECG: Opioids can affect the cardiovascular system by depressing heart rate (leading to bradycardia) or increasing heart rate (tachycardia, during opioid withdrawal). ECG monitoring helps assess the degree of cardiac suppression caused by opioid, the severity of withdrawal symptoms and the cardiac safety of medications used in treating opioid addiction or withdrawal.
Activity: In preclinical addiction models, activity changes reveal drug-seeking behaviors, offering insights into opioid addiction and relapse. Opioid use may cause sedation or hyperactivity, influenced by dosage and dependence. Withdrawal often results in increased motor activity, anxiety, and restlessness. Monitoring these activity changes helps assess withdrawal severity and evaluate the effectiveness of treatments aimed at alleviating symptoms.
Temperature : Opioids can disrupt thermoregulation, commonly causing hypothermia by lowering body temperature. During withdrawal, hyperthermia, sweating, and chills are frequent. Monitoring temperature changes helps assess withdrawal severity and the effectiveness of treatments in stabilizing autonomic function.
easyTEL+ implantable telemetry can acquire multiple biopotentials, temperature, activity, and respiratory rate in small and large animals. It can also be combined with whole body plethysmography for cardiorespiratory measurements.
Implantable telemetry enables long-term studies of addiction, to explore the neurobiological, behavioral, and physiological changes associated with prolonged drug exposure and withdrawal.
rodentPACK head-mounted telemetry acquires up to 4 four low-noise biopotentials (cortical or penetrating EEG, EMG, ECG, EOG) as well as activity from rodents 50g or more. It can also be combined with whole body plethysmography for cardiorespiratory measurements.
Externalized transmitters can be reused across subjects, cohorts, and studies, reducing start-up costs for behavioral studies requiring a large subject pool. The custom design of our transmitters (electrodes, electrode wires, polarity) combined with user configurable sampling rate, resolution, and gain, provide users with various study design options. Easily exchangeable batteries last for up to 150 hours of continuous recordings.
eegPACK system collects neurological and activity changes in large animals without surgical implantation of the telemeter.
Subjects are equipped with an external transmitter housed in a jacket or a helmet with surface leads paced on the scalp. It provides the ability to reuse transmitters across subjects, cohorts, and/or studies for a cost-effective alternative to implantable telemetry.
eegPACK system can collect up to 4 biopotentials (EEG, EOG, ECG, EMG) in addition to activity recording. Physiological measurements are captured non-invasively and wirelessly transmitted by Bluetooth or radio frequency, to a receiver.
Whole body plethysmography permits a continuous and non-invasive assessment of breathing patterns in conscious subjects. Measurements of respiratory rate, estimated tidal volume, minute ventilation and events like apneas and deep sighs provide valuable insights into the subject’s breathing drive and behavior. Plethysmography provides the ideal approach to assessing changes in conscious respiratory behaviour which result from drug administration.
The use of swivel towers allows researchers to administer drugs to subjects and to monitor resultant changes in respiration (i.e. frequency, tidal volume, minute volume, flow rates) with ease and in real-time. This approach can also be combined with gas challenges, through the use of automated mass flow controllers, to provide additional stimuli for assessing the control of breathing in the context of opioid administration.
The easySYNC device is particularly useful in behavioral studies, as it allows the Noldus EthoVision behavior tracking software to externally trigger EMKA’s IOX2 acquisition software.
Tracking and analysis of the behavior, movement, and activity of an animal is done in EthoVision while synchronized physiological data from EMKA’s easyTEL+ or rodentPACK wireless telemetry systems is collected in the IOX data acquisition software.
* Transistor-Transistor Logic
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