HIBRAD

Thermoregulated cage for the study of hibernation.

The device has been designed to comfortably host hibernating animals in order to provide them with a protected environment, isolated from the outside, where they can undergo experimental procedures and instrumental investigation without having to remove them from the environment, thus avoiding unnecessary stress on the animals themselves and reducing experimental variability.

The device allows to reach very quickly the temperature

set by the experimenter and to keep it constant with an accuracy of 0.1 °C in the range 4 °C-25 °C. The radiotransparency of the materials allows the cage to be used for radiobiology experiments, but it is easily adaptable for use in radiological diagnostics.

Currently, there is no thermoregulated environment on the market destined for the individual animal that allows the transport of animals to use radiological equipment without stressing them. In many laboratories, research on hibernation, which is a fast-growing topic, is now being held back because animals are often hosted in common areas and it is therefore not possible to adapt the environmental temperature of a single specimen without changing that of the entire group. Even less possible is the transport of animals kept in a temperature-controlled environment for the use of other experimental equipment.

The possibility of adapting the size of the device to the needs of the individual user would then allow the instrument to be adapted to other experimental models, such as, for example, cell cultures and organoids, further expanding its usefulness.