Center for Injury Biomechanics, Materials, and Medicine

The Rat 3-Chambered Sociability device was custom built in our laboratory to assess the social behavior in rodents.

This 3 chambered device is a fantastic contraption for researchers studying socialization who require an apparatus in which variables may be altered to change the premises of the experiment. The three‐chamber test is a commonly used method to measure social approach behavior in rodents. After adaptation to the thee-chamber arena, animal is released into the middle chamber and allowed to explore the other compartments. In the adjacent animal compartment a docile stimulus animal is situated in a mesh-wire container, while in the other adjacent compartment a similar container is located without stimulus animal (object compartment). The tendency to approach or avoid the compartment with the stimulus animal provides a measure of sociability.