The Animal Behavioral and Informatics Core will provide support to the basic science animal projects in the Specialized Center of Research (SCOR). The core will have the following specific functions: a. To support studies of behavior for the protocols in the animal projects. This will involve studies of rest/activity, computer processing of data and ensuring that the animal being studied is normal and not a behavioral outlier. The Core staff will assist staff in the individual projects in conducting sleep (rest) deprivation studies and in sacrifice of animals. For studies involving sleep/wake recording by electroencephalographic (EEG) and electromyographic (EMG) means, the Core staffwill assist project staff in this activity and be responsible for hand scoring of all EEG/EMG records. b. To provide data base support to investigators in the SCOR using the Mouse Informatics system to allow investigators to archive and retrieve information on mouse behavior, details of animal health, method of sacrifice, tissue dissection and amount of RNA or protein obtained from microdissection techniques. c. To continue further development of the Mouse Informatics Center, and developing an Informatics Center for studies in Drosophila. d. To characterize sleep/wake patterns by EEG/EMG recording in a large sample of C57BL/6J mice during the behavioral protocols to be conducted, including the response to different durations of sleep deprivation. e. To continue participation in development of improved non-invasive ways of phenotyping mouse sleep. This will involve recording of rest/activity and analysis of digital video images with validation studies comparing the data obtained with definitive scoring of sleep by EEG/EMG methods.
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