VASIC

In HardwareX, Brendan Drackley and colleagues share VASIC, an open source weight-bearing device for high-throughput and unbiased behavioral pain assessment in rodents.

The assessment of pain in animal models is a key component in understanding and developing treatments for chronic pain. Drackley and colleagues developed VASIC (Voluntary Access Static Incapacitance Chamber), a modified version of a weight-bearing test. A brief water deprivation encourages rats or mice to seek water in a test chamber, set up with a weighing platforms under the water spout, which can assess weight shifting to an unaffected side in animals with damage to nerves or inflammatory pain. The design incorporates a custom printed circuit board (available from the paper), infrared sensor, Arduino microcontroller, 3D printed parts, and open source software for analysis. A full parts list, links to files, and data from a validation study are available in their paper.

This research tool was created by your colleagues. Please acknowledge the Principal Investigator, cite the article in which the tool was described, and include an RRID in the Materials and Methods of your future publications.  RRID:SCR_021458