Traditionally, the annual Society for Neuroscience conference is where we debut the newest offerings in our product lline. This year, we proudly showcased an array of products following two years of development. The first to be unveiled was our wireless running wheel for mice, this device was the topic of discussion presented by our own Director of Research and Development, Gerry Herrera, PhD at the Oct., 2007 AAALAS meeting in Charlotte, NC. (Herrera, G.M. and Falls, W.A. Novel wireless in-cage running wheels used to record mouse wheel running activity in ventilated rack home cages. J. Am. Assoc. Lab. Animal Sci. 46: 91, 2007.) Ergonomically designed to easily fit inside a standard ventilated cage, these running wheels transmit the number of revolutions made and distance run to a wireless hub and pc. They’re also scaleable (256 wheels can run on 1 hub, up to 4 full hubs can connect to 1 pc via USB) and cost effective with an introductory price of $200.00 per wheel and $700.00 per hub! What a great way to gather circadian data while providing environmental enrichment.

Also introduced was SoftCr-Pro (SOF-722). This program generates real time cumulative records while running on the same computer as MED-PC®. Even more exciting is SoftCR-Pro’s networking capabilities that allow you to remotely observe experiments that are running in your lab.

Our On-Demand Water Maze Platform has been released with a new version of Water Maze Software. The software interface is also extremely user friendly allowing you to define your pool parameters, and providing you with real time analysis on latency to the platform, swim path and more. A great deal of time was also spent ensuring that the underwater on-demand platform would release and rise smoothly without significant water displacement.

The optimized chamber design and addition of a new disposable tail electrode system to our wheel turn boxes used for learned helplessness studies also met with favorable comments. Dr. Herrera presented a poster at Neuroscience 2007 (Herrera, G.M. and Dworkin, S.I. Geometric analysis of escape responding in rats on a progressive/regressive ratio schedule. Program No. 639.14. 2007 Neuroscience Meeting Planner. San Diego, CA: Society for Neuroscience, 2007. Online.), describing the new wheel-turn boxes.

Earlier this year, we announced that all our products will be covered by our industry leading 5 Year Warranty on all parts and labor (http://www.med-associates.com/policies.htm). Just another way that Med-Associates stands behind it’s products. We appreciate the many friendly visits we received to our booth from so many of you and those who attended our MED-PC® course at this year’s Society for Neuroscience Conference. As always it’s a pleasure being able to speak with you all and share in your scientific pursuits.