Development of a removable head fixation device for longitudinal behavioral and imaging studies in rats

摘要

Background: In some behavioral neuroscience studies, an attachment is surgically fixed onto the head of an awake animal to allow the animal to perform learning tasks repeatedly in the same position in a task training system. A recently developed task-training system enables operant conditioning of head-fixed rats within only a few days, and this system has been rigorously applied to record learning-associated neural activity using electrophysiological techniques. However, the head attachment of this device is made of metal and thus is not suitable for simultaneous brain imaging studies with X-ray computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET).