The ANY-maze controlled Fear Conditioning system is an ANY-maze software driven product (www.ANY-maze.com). A Fear Conditioning specific version of the ANY-maze software is paired with and controls all of the components necessary to conduct Fear Conditioning experiments on mice.

The system uses the two most common fear conditioning paradigms:

• Contextual Fear Conditioning
• Acoustically-Cued Fear Conditioning

Fear conditioning is the method by which animals learn to fear new stimuli. It is a form of learning in which fear is associated with a particular neutral context (e.g. a room) or neutral stimulus (e.g. a tone). This can be done by pairing the neutral stimulus with an aversive stimulus (e.g. a shock). Eventually, the neutral stimulus alone can elicit the state of fear.

The system includes the following:

• Fear Conditioning Specific version of ANY-maze Behavioral Tracking Software

• FireWire camera

• Sound Generator

• Shocker

• Animal Enclosure with electrified grid floor

• Sound-Attenuating Chamber with light and fan

• Context Kit (to alter chamber’s color and texture)

ANY-maze software (specific to the Fear Conditioning apparatus)

• Immobility (fear-induced freezing) quantitatively measured using video-based detection

• Automatically calculates parameters of interest such as:

  • Total freezing time
  • Number of freezing episodes
  • Duration of freeing episodes
  • Latency times between stimuli and freezing events

Shocker

• Constant current (from 0.1 to 2.9 mA in 0.1 mA steps)

Sound Generator

• Two Independent channels with adjustable frequency and intensity (100-40,000 Hz; 1-150 dB)

• Two independent ‘white noise’ channels

• ANY-maze driven

• Speaker (and light) can be freely positioned within the sound-attenuation chamber

Enclosure with Electrified Grid Floor

• 17 x 17 x 25(h) cm

• Convenient and innovative opening and debris tray

Sound-Attenuating Chamber

• Minimizes travel of ultrasonic vocalizations and fear-related pheromones

• Includes light and fan

Context Kit

• Includes a set of removable contexts to alter the animal enclosure’s color and texture

Note: Macintosh Operating Systems are not supported.