The use of rectal probes associated to digital thermometers is one of the most classical procedures used in this context as it represents an easy and accurate way to measure animal body core temperature.
Animal body temperature is a key factor to control in a wide variety of pharmacological and behavioral experiments: surgery, evaluation of pain sensitivity to thermal stimuli, evaluation of blood pressure using the non-invasive method, etc…
Surgery tables are classically used for completing general surgical work on small laboratory animals.
Anaesthesia induction is the first step of the anaesthesia process when general aneasthesia is required in the experiment procedure (pain models, electrophysiology, lesions, stereotaxy etc…).
With actual major health problems linked to food and drink intakes such as alcoholism and obesity, the search to define the role of brain and molecular mechanisms in regulating food and drink intake has taken on a new priority.
Knowledge in the field of animal energetics is largely based upon indirect calorimetry, which is estimation of metabolic heat production by the organism from measurement of indices such as oxygen consumption or carbon dioxide production.
The apomorphine test using an rotameter has proved to be a popular test for screening the behavioral effects of a wide variety of lesions, drugs, and other experimental manipulations on the brain of rodents.