Behavior unit

Research Support Unit

The Behavior Unit of the Cajal Institute was created in 2011, forming part of the Center’s Research Support Services, providing coverage to both users of the Cajal Institute and users of other institutions.

Research support functions and technical support

The functions of the Behavior Unit are the following:

• Request the registration of users in the Reservation Agenda of the Conduct Chambers to the CAU of the Center.
• Update the data of the Service in the templates for the Catalog of CSIC Benefits.
• Carry out the bimonthly internal billing, based on the time reserved by the users in the Booking Agenda and send the invoices signed by the researchers to the Administration of the Center.
• Centralize user suggestions and possible incidents in the rooms and accessories belonging to the Unit.
  Manage the purchases approved by the Center Management for the improvement of the rooms.
  Safeguard certain commonly used accessories (marbles, sound level meter, lux meter, rubber for the mouse Rotarod,…).
• Distribute to the users the protocols of the tests prepared by the previous personnel of the Behavior Unit (Actimeters, Passive avoidance, Behavioral phenotyping, Handling, Prepulse inhibition, Marble burying, Object recognition, Porsolt, Rotarod, Elevated plus maze, Y maze and Water maze), as well as the guide to use the Ethovision xt 2007 software.

Unit operation

In order to make good use of the resources that we have at the Center, it will be necessary to respect the basic Rules of the Conduct Unit that are described below.

1. ROOM RESERVATIONS AND CONDUCT TEAMS:
To work in the Conduct rooms, it is mandatory to reserve them in the application that exists for this purpose in the center (http://reservas.cajal.csic.es/).
Access to said application is through the registration request to the Computing Service. The request for registration of the users in the rooms is made by the personnel in charge of the Unit, to whom the following information will be sent by email: name and surname of the user, ID, email address, name and surname of the responsible researcher and the number of the room or rooms (for example: room 1, room 4…) in which users wish to register.
It is mandatory to reserve the rooms even if they are going to be used for a short time, equipment is not going to be used or the user’s own equipment is going to be used. 0.8 euros will be billed to the user’s group per hour reserved on the Reservation Sheet.

2. ROOMS, EQUIPMENT AND CONDUCT ACCESSORIES:
The reservations of the rooms in the application are divided into two agendas:
-Agenda 1: The rooms belonging to this agenda are 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
-Agenda 2: The rooms belonging to this agenda are 2, 6, 8 and 8bis. Animals can be kept in room 6 for a limited time. The use of this room under these conditions must be communicated to the Animal Facility staff, and the necessary time must be reserved on the Reservation Sheet.
In the rooms there are two types of equipment and accessories:
-Those belonging to the Conduct Unit: may be used as long as the user has been instructed in their use. These equipments and accessories are: Actimeters, PPI, Passive avoidance, Water Maze, Ethovision XT 2007, Video Elevated plus maze, Ethovison 3.0, mouse Rota-Rod rubber, Luxometer, Sound level meter and Marbles.
-The private ones of the research groups: they can be used as long as you have permission from the owner.

3. MOBILITY OF CONDUCT ROOM TEAMS:

In principle, IT IS NOT ALLOWED TO CHANGE ANY EQUIPMENT IN THE ROOM IN WHICH THEY ARE LOCATED. Only in cases in which the mobility of a team is strictly necessary, the user should contact the staff of the Conduct Unit to supervise the change.

4. EQUIPMENT THAT REQUIRES KEYS/LICENSES FOR ITS OPERATION:
Some equipment (Ethovision XT2007, Ethovision 3.0) require keys/licenses for its operation. It is necessary to request these keys at Reception and register the loan in a book that exists for this purpose together with the keys.

5. MAINTENANCE OF EQUIPMENT AND ROOMS:
Each user will be responsible for ensuring that the equipment, accessories and rooms are left clean, collected and in perfect condition for use after having used them. Due to the lack of space in the Conduct rooms, it is not allowed to leave the user’s own material in the Conduct rooms for longer than is necessary to carry out the test.

6. ENTRANCES AND EXITS OF THE ROOMS:
The state of occupancy of the room must be indicated by means of the signs that are on the door knobs: it will be placed on the part of the sign that indicates “Experiment in progress” (in red) when a test is being carried out within the room. room, or the part of the sign that indicates “Free room” (in green) when no rehearsal is being carried out. It is important to indicate with these signs whether the room is being used or not.

7. NOISE IN THE EXPERIMENTAL HALL AND IN THE BEHAVIOR HALL:
Loud noises, loud voices, mobile phones, slamming doors and other noises that can be generated in the corridors of the Animal Facility are very detrimental to Conduct tests, even more so at certain critical moments of the test. We know that it is unavoidable to generate certain noises, but we ask that you avoid generating them as much as possible when the rooms are occupied (indicated on the signs on the doorknobs of the rooms).

8. RESERVATION LIMITATIONS:
In principle, no limit rules will be applied to the number of reservation hours for rooms. Users are requested to be understandable when coordinating reservations, so that all users can carry out their tests in the best possible way. In case of conflicts, the Conduct Unit will mediate on the possible coincidences of several groups in the demand for a room/equipment at the same time.

9. CHANGES IN THE ROOMS:
If you need to make any changes in the rooms (lamps, cameras, objects, etc.) you must notify the staff of the Conduct Unit. In short periods of time between rehearsals, the rooms may be left ready to continue with the rehearsal in the following days, as long as the next user who had the reserved room is not harmed.

10. INCIDENTS:
If there is any incident in any equipment or room, the staff of the Conduct Unit must be notified via e-mail. Each room has an Incident notebook, where users can write down what they consider appropriate about the state of the room after their experiments, in order to guide the following users and the Unit to try to solve possible problems.

Available protocols in the Behavior Unit

In the Conduct Unit there are a series of conduct test protocols, available to all users who require them, upon request by e-mail to Unit staff. These protocols are:

-Actimeters.
-Barnes maze.
-Passive avoidance.
-Complete behavioral phenotyping.
-Initial behavioral phenotyping.
-Guide to use Ethovision.
-Handling.
-Prepulse inhibition.
-Cage of activity.
-Marble burying.
-Recognition of objects.
-Olfactometer.
– Porsolt.
-Rotarod.
-Video Elevated plus maze.
-Water maze.
-And maze.

Staff