Poster Abstract
Background: Quantifying spontaneous locomotor activity, stereotyped movements, anxiety-related behavior, and exploration parameters is pivotal in neuropharmacology, safety, and neurotoxicity studies to determine whether new chemical entities possess psychostimulant, sedative, or toxic effects. Such studies may involve large-scale assessments of locomotor activity in rodents under GLP compliance, which can be labor-intensive and time-consuming. To address these challenges, we have developed the VivaMARS system for automated, high-throughput (up to 30 subjects per session) locomotor activity testing in rodents.
Objective: This study aims to validate the VivaMARS platform with two reference compounds: caffeine (CAF), known to increase rodent locomotor activity, and chlorpromazine (CPZ), known to decrease rodent locomotor activity.