The Rodent Behavioral Core (RBC) provides planning, execution, and analysis of behavioral experiments examining activity, arousal, coordinated movement, learning and memory, anxiety, depression, seizure susceptibility, reward/reinforcement, and aggression in mice and rats. Additional tests can potentially be developed on a case-by-case basis. The Behavioral Core also offers several rodent surgical services and assistance in IACUC protocol preparation. Directed by Jason Schroeder, Ph.D. and David Weinshenker, Ph.D., the Core is located in the vivarium of the Whitehead Biomedical Research Building. The animal facility has dedicated approximately 1,300 square feet of space for this core, which includes four mouse and/or rat testing rooms, and isolated cubicles for particularly sensitive tests. At present, the following items and tests have been developed and validated by the Core and/or the Weinshenker lab: Locomotor activity; Arousal and attention; Coordinated movement; Learning and memory; Anxiety/Stress; Depression; Seizure susceptibility; Reward/Reinforcement; Aggression; Sensorimotor Gating.

The Rodent Behavioral Core (RBC) is subsidized by the Emory University School of Medicine and is one of the Emory Integrated Core Facilities. Additional support is provided by the Emory Neuroscience NINDS Core Facilities (P30NS055077). Further support was provided by the Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number UL1TR002378.