Chora is an innovative family of devices with one mission: perform the research activity into the home cage. Really!
The Chora feeder is an Operant Wall controlled by Phenopy software, a Python based open source software developed by the Italian Institute of Technology, created by researchers for researchers.



Operant conditioning experiments directly inside the home cages means:
  • Low level of stress and anxiety
    Introduction of anxiety or stress due to a totally new environment, besides being important from ethical point of view, could mess up all the useful data.
  • Fast habituation
    Time is important in long term experiments. A fast habituation time could save a lot of workload for the experimenter.
  • Reduced human interference
    An home cage device enables reduction in human-rodents interaction. Furthermore, it allows to let the device work in stand-alone.
  • Modularity
    Chora feeder is born as an operant wall with food dispencers, but it could be integrated with other Chora devices always maintaining the same interface to the animals. This is useful also to have devices that are easy to clean (water intake monitoring system, wireless optogenetic device, RFID reader, etc.).

The Chora feeder is helpful in many customizable behavioral tests, such as work-for-food tests associated to self motivated learning and memory, circadian performance analysis ralated to phenotyping studies or self-administration in drug addiction tests.



Stimuli, cues, responses and reinforcement:

  • Red, green and blu lights (or a specific customizable color) for each hopper.
  • Sound signals on a loudspeaker for each hopper (tone generator or white noise).
  • Rewarding system: food, liquid, drug or optogenetic stimuli.
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    And, last but not least, care for design!

    Refined and resistant materials, hidden sensors and smooth surfaces make the Chora feeder a complete device ready to use also in your facility.

    Selected Publication
    E.Balzani, M.Falappa, F.Balci & V.Tucci
    "An approach to monitoring home-cage behavior in mice that facilitates data sharing."
    Nature Protocols 13, 1331-1347 (2018)
    https://www.nature.com/articles/nprot.2018.031


    Chora family devices don’t need any other complex data acquisition hardware, just plug the adapter in your desktop PC or laptop, and you are ready to go.

    Running Phenopy is simple, it is accessible also to scientists with no programming background.

    Let's build a community to collect and share scientific data!

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