• Overview
• Quality Assurance
• Anxiety
• Depression & Sexual Dysfunction
• Cognition & ADHD
• Psychosis & Mania
• Phenotyping & Breeding
• Other
  • in vivo Microdialysis
  • Neurological & Other Disorders
  • Neuromorphology
  • Obesity
  • Pain
  • Radiotelemetry
  • Index of Tests

Phenotyping & Breeding

Researchers studying new drug targets need comprehensive ways to assess a target's relevance to CNS disorders.  Use of knockout and transgenic mice with careful phenotyping has proven to be a powerful method, with the potential not only to validate hypotheses about gene function but also to uncover unexpected functions.

PsychoGenics has developed a systematic series of behavioral tests known as PsychoScreen™ that measures a broad range of behavioral and neurological modalities (such as anxiety, mood, cognition, neuromotor function, pain, sleep, and attention) to help investigators phenotype their transgenic mice. Researchers who choose to run PsychoScreen™ or a modified version thereof instead of more limited studies can avoid missing valuable information or unexpected side effects of targets.

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The evaluation of behavior in genetically modified mice is especially complex because there are multiple ways for a mutation to produce subtle changes that affect performance in any given test. Therefore, it is advantageous to use convergent data from multiple behavioral paradigms in order to better evaluate the significance of any behavioral finding (and avoid missing useful observations).  For example, performance such as the Morris water maze is affected by multiple factors, including anxiety, attention, locomotor function, motivation, memory, and vision. PsychoScreen™ asseses all of these behavioral domains as well as others.

PsychoScreen™ can uncover potential signs of anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, cognitive disorders and dementia, mania, epilepsy, pain, addiction, ADHD and impulsivity, neuromotor disorders, sleep disorders, and sexual disorders. More then a dozen tests are run, and the results indicate how strongly the behavior relates to each of the major disorders under study. Clients can obtain full results and detailed recommendations in as little as 3-4 weeks.

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Breeding and Genotyping
PsychoGenics has a state-of-the-art high capacity breeding facility to establish pathogen-free lines of selected mice strains, transgenics, knock-outs and knock-ins. Colonies are expanded to provide sufficient mice for primary phenotyping (random mutation and genetic disease models) as well as drug evaluation (selected gene modulation models, surgical models and drug-induced models). PsychoGenics experience includes working with the following models: Spinal Muscular Atrophy (smn KO, SMA-delta-7, SMA-A2G), Huntington's disease (R6/2, Q111 and YAC128), Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis - ALS (SOD1) and Alzheimer's disease (APP/PS1) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - ADHD (Coloboma mice).

Standard genotyping services are routinely performed at PsychoGenics with larger genotyping projects provided with the assistance of Laragen Inc.