Providing services to more than 50 researchers from over 20 departments at Pitt and UPMC, the Preclinical Phenotyping Core (PPC) facilitates the phenotypic characterization of animal models as well as providing training in rodent behavioral and functional phenotyping for researchers across the institution. Located within the animal facility in Biomedical Sciences Tower 3, the PPC occupies approximately 2000 square feet across two floors with seven procedure rooms and a dedicated surgical procedure room, all of which are equipped with independent light/dark cycle controls to facilitate circadian and overnight studies. The facility’s walls, architectural features, and mechanical systems have been optimized to minimize the creation and transmission of noise and vibration from within and from outside of the facility which is optimal for conducting sensitive behavioral testing in rodents.
Administered by the University of Pittsburgh Aging Institute and under the direction of Core Director Stacey Sukoff Rizzo, PhD, the PPC is staffed with two research associates with extensive rodent behavioral phenotyping expertise who serve as the PPC co-managers to provide expert technical assistance and training, in addition to managing daily facility operations and maintenance. The PPC has established a robust training and validation program for research staff with proficiency metrics for each assay to ensure proper experimental design, execution, and analysis and interpretation of data.
As a critical core for several major NIH funded multi-institutional consortia and Center grants, the PPC has extensive experience and expertise across multiple behavioral paradigms encompassing domains of aging; addiction; depression; anxiety; motivation, motor, sensorimotor, and fine motor behaviors; general exploratory and locomotor activity; nociception; social behavior; learning; memory; attention; circadian activity, neurophysiology, and behavioral pharmacology techniques. The facility is also fitted with sensory testing equipment including assays for assessing vision, audition, olfaction, gustation, and a variety of both low and high threshold mechanical and thermal somatosensory modalities.
The PPC manages and provides access to optimized and validated testing protocols and behavioral testing equipment for rats and mice including: open field activity, light-dark test, forced swim test, tail suspension test, gait analysis, acoustic startle and pre-pulse inhibition, adhesive removal test, rotarod, grip strength, von Frey test, Hargreaves test, hot plate, tail flick, water maze, olfactory discrimination, olfactory habituation/dishabituation, elevated plus maze, social interaction tests, ultrasonic vocalization equipment, quantitative homecage wheel running, spatial recognition memory, spatial working memory y-maze spontaneous alternation task, optokinetic function, and frailty assessments for aging mice. Recent significant investments in new state-of-the-art behavioral testing equipment include translational touchscreen based cognitive testing systems for sophisticated learning, memory, and attention tasks and wireless telemetry systems for EEG and EMG. The PPC also has established infrastructure and drug screening pipelines available to facilitate in vivo pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic assays.
Consultations for experimental design, as well as assistance with grant preparation and budgets, is provided by Dr. Rizzo at no cost to the researchers across Pitt and UPMC.
For more information or to schedule a tour or consultation, visit the PPC’s website or email BST3PPC@pitt.edu.