Pinnacle offers a unique solution for sleep deprivation of rats and mice without associated exercise effects. A metal bar, positioned 1 cm above the bottom of the cage, rotates during periods of sleep or programmed sleep deprivation. This disturbs the animal such that it must wake up to move around the bar as it rotates. Rotation of the bar ceases once the animal has been awake for a predetermined period of time limiting exercise and stress effects due to stimulus application.
Preliminary studies have shown this to be an effective method for long-term sleep fragmentation and/or deprivation. Sleep onset parameters can be automatically determined by the software or controlled directly by the user. In the case of software control, EEG and EMG signals fed into the Sirenia software control suite are analyzed for signs of sleep (high EEG delta activity, low EMG amplitude, etc.) and the rotating bar stimulus is triggered when any of these parameters are met. Parameters may also be modified by the experimenter, when necessary. A second mode allows the rotating bar to be programmed independently to follow a controlled deprivation paradigm as defined by the experimenter.
