Challenge 3: Rodent Big Brother: automated recording of rodent activity and temperature in the home cage

Budget: £500,000

Measurement of the activity of individual rats or mice in their home cage provides useful information in studies from basic research through to drug discovery and development.

The development of a non-surgical, automated approach to measure activity and temperature in animals would avoid the need for surgery or single housing and enable incorporation of additional measurements into existing study types, thereby reducing the number of separate studies. It could potentially impact on the welfare of thousands of animals. More broadly, this technology could also be used for early identification of animals with subdued activity or changes in body temperature which could be used to improve humane endpoints.

The aim of this Challenge is to develop an integrated system which combines measurement of activity and temperature in rodents that can be used with group housing and without surgery.