Applications

Ingestive behavior sustains life, but in some forms can lead to morbidities such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and chronic inflammation. The interplay of an individual’s genotype, behavioral and metabolic phenotype, physical and social environment, and its gastrointestinal microbiome are important influencers of ingestive behavior.

Understanding the factors that initiate ingestion and signal satiety in model animals and humans is facilitated by metabolic and behavioral phenotyping. This provides scientists the comprehensive phenotyping data necessary to understand many of the factors involved in regulating ingestive behavior with the goal being to reduce morbidities.

• Food and water intake
• Automated access control to food and water; paired or yoked studies
• Dual food hoppers or water bottles for preference studies
• Activity monitoring in a home cage environment
• Stress free body mass measurement in a home cage environment
• Meal pattern analysis
• Micro-event data acquisition for high-resolution analysis of ingestion and other behaviors