Research On The Intellective Device Of Rat Depression Modeling

Depression is one of the most common emotional disorders, and more and more serious social and economic problems are brought because of the increasing incidence of depression. Therefore, an ideal animal model of depression is of vital importance to depression researching and development of antidepressant drug. Now, Chronic unpredictable mild stress(CUMS) is the animal model that is the most closely to the clinical depression. However, CUMS is made by manual operation, so there are big workload and human factors. In view of these shortcomings, the device was designed on electromechanical integration technology. Many kinds of stresses as inclining cage, noise stimulation, light stimulation, etc can be given automatically according to the pre-program, meanwhile sugar-water consumption was recorded automatically.The stress parameters was set on the personal computer (PC) control interface, then was transferred to the microcontroller through local area network which runs according to this parameters. The microprocessor of tilting cage module controlled stepper motor to realize automation through changing rotation direction, speed, rotation time. Light stimulus was realized through a distributed source controlled by microprocessor, and some parameters like twinkle frequency, twinkle time can be set on the interface. Sound stimulus module was made automatically through playing canned sound file. The system of automatic water control and measurement include two constant-pressure supplying channels, animal drinking state detection, water control and metering device etc. Functions of continuous automatic water control and metering was completed. The molding process of animal depression was implemented through the above module cooperating with each other.The device was tested and verified by animal experiments. The system can be under a stable operation according to the preset parameters, and can cause rats into the state of anxiety and despair. It showed that automatic depression modeling device is designed successfully.