Head-Fixation

RODIN - RODent Immobilisation-system for Neuroscience

Innovative rodent head-fixation made simple for you and minimally-intrusive for your mice


Head-fixation minus the headaches... Maximal stability with minimal intrusion upon the animal

The growing use of head-fixation in awake rodents has enabled a range of sophisticated electrophysiological and imaging-based investigation of neural circuits in vivo, that are intractable in freely-moving animals.

Cambridge NeuroTech RODIN Head-Fixation System for mice and rats for electrophysiology and imaging video

The (many) problem(s) with current head-fixation systems:

  • Fiddly to fix the animal and not readily customisable for new targets
  • Head-bars sit low on the skull and intrude upon the animal’s sensory fields
  • Lack of off-the-shelf systems forcing reliance on ‘home-made’ solutions which vary in quality, reliability and most importantly stability
  • Constrained access for multi-target or multi-modal approaches using imaging + electrophysiology


The RODent Immobilisation-system for Neuroscience (RODIN) head-fixation system for mice and rats solves these problems:

  • Quick-Fix and Release implants; fix your animal in a few seconds with minimal stress
  • Rear-oriented scaffold moves fixation away from the skull and keeps sensory fields unobstructed
  • Skull-conformal implants that can be cutomised to a range of targets in a lightweight, highly stable form to suit electrophysiology and imaging

DOWNLOAD HEAD-FIXATION CATALOG

Multi-modal, multi-target head-fixation implants for combined electrophysiology and imaging

The innovative design of the RODIN head-fixation implant is built around a skull-conformal, ultra-light yet strong core which sets the fixation surface above and behind the skull unlike other implants that tend to sit low on the skull. This not only frees up skull space and easy access for multi-target electrophysiology (both acute and chronically-implanted moveable probes) and / or an imaging objective lens, but also reduces the impact of the implant on the animal's sensory fields (visual and often auditory systems) which in turn facilitates 'better' behaviour.

Despite weighing typically <1g, the RODIN head-fixation implants can achieve mechanical stability of <3 microns during behaviour. We haven't just thought about your animals though.... it's also really straightforward to fix your animal using the RODIN quick-release dovetail mount, typically requiring 3-4 seconds to fix your animal so less stress for both you and you animal before you start gathering your data.

If you are considering multi-target approaches in head-fixed animals, check out the Multi-Probe Manipulator system which offers you stereotaxically-guided precision adjustment of our acute silicon neural probes in real-time during your experiment.

Gyorgy Buzsaki
"For our application combining chronic imaging and electrophysiology, 3-D chronic probe stacks mounted on nano-Drives are unparalleled... allowing high signal-to-noise, high-density recording across multiple regions. Our project would not be possible without this technology."

Gyorgy Buzsaki

Lab Head, NYU School of Medicine, New York, USA

Brain Area: cortex Species: Mouse

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