A SIMPLE COMPUTER-BASED METHOD FOR PERFORMING AND ANALYZING INTRACRANIAL SELF-STIMULATION EXPERIMENTS IN RATS

Intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) in the rat is a useful tool for s tudying the importance of various brain monoamines in positive reinfor cement The effects of compounds interacting with dopaminergic neurotra nsmission is measurable by studying the changes of reward thresholds. By computerisation of the analysis of these thresholds, standardisatio n and reproducibility is greatly enhanced. The use of an object-orient ed programming language simplifies the programming of a specific appli cation and it provides scientists without formal training in computer programming the means to create their own software. A system for the a cquisition, execution, analysis and storage of ICSS experiments is des cribed. The hardware is based on Apple Macintosh computers, interfaced to the test chambers and physiological stimulators using a plug-in ca rd supporting A/D, D/A, digital I/O and timer functions. The software written in G (LabVIEW(R)) provides the user with a graphically based ' Virtual Instrument' performing all aspect of the ICSS experiment. The software performs threshold analysis immediately after completion of t he ICSS experiment, thereby greatly reducing the total time previously needed to evaluate these experiments. The graphical approach used in LabVIEW(R) allows the programmer to make fast and simple alterations t o suit different experimental problems.