Description
MouseQwake is a sleep disruption/fragmentation system for mice, with a unique “shaking” capability. They are equipped with a transducer beneath the cage floor, which gets activated to deliver vibro-tactile stimulation to affect sleep, which can be activated either in closed-loop (upon detection of sleep or low activity) or open-loop (activation according to a fixed/randomized time interval). The basis of the MouseQwake system is the use of non-invasive vibrational stimulation that is adjustable in timing (when the stimulation is applied to the animal), amplitude (intensity of stimulation), and frequency (speed of vibration). NOTE: The Digital I/O can be used as a standard Data Acquisition Device if desired.
The system can be set to operate within a range for each of these settings, or can be set to randomize them individually to avoid animal habituation to the stimulus. The stimulation can be applied according to four protocols:
- Sleep-Based: Applying stimulation upon PiezoSleep, estimating the animal to be in sleep
- Activity-Based: Applying stimulation upon activity measure dropping below a set threshold, allowing the user to apply stimulation with more aggressive timing
- Open-Loop: Applying the stimulation according to a fixed (or randomized) time interval
- Manual (On Demand): Applying stimulus to all cages upon the user activating a software button.
Digital I/O Option: We also offer DIO for the MouseQwake system, which expands the functionality to:
- Allow the user to trigger channels to stimulate individually using a TTL input
- Generate a TTL output while a cage is being stimulated.
These functions of the systems are further described in our manuals.
