The Skinner Operant Chamber, also known as the Operant Conditioning Chamber or Skinner Box, is a classic and widely used apparatus in behavioral neuroscience and psychology research.
Based on Thorndike’s Law of Effect and B.F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning, this system enables researchers to study how rewards and punishments influence behavior.
The Operant Chamber for rats and mice allows precise control and recording of conditioned responses, providing an ideal setup for studying learning, memory, addiction, decision-making, and neuropharmacological effects. Its modular and automated design supports diverse experimental paradigms — from lever pressing and nose poking to touchscreen tasks — ensuring both flexibility and reproducibility in behavioral research.
The Skinner Operant Chamber, also known as the Conditioned Behavioral Operant Chamber was created and designed by B.F. Skinner in the 1930s to study operant conditioning behavior. It is not only used to study animal behavior, but also widely used in the brain and behaviorScientific research, such as complex behavior training, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, autism, stimulation or damage to certain parts of the brain, the effect of some certain drugs on animal behavior, combined photogenetic, electrophysiology to study various affective neural circuits, and so on.
The Skinner Operant Chamber is used to train animals (rats or mice) to perform specific actions such as pressing a lever or touching a screen in response to certain stimuli.
Correct responses trigger positive reinforcement (e.g., food pellets or liquid rewards), while incorrect responses can be followed by mild punishment or no reward, forming the basis of operant learning.
Application
Neural Circuit Studies: Learning, memory, motivation, addiction, and decision-making Neuropharmacology: Drug screening for neurological and psychiatric disorders (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, depression, schizophrenia, addiction) Behavioral Conditioning: Reward-seeking and avoidance learning Cognitive Function Testing: Attention, discrimination, and delay-based paradigms
Features
Supports up to 32 channels of simultaneous testing.
Each chamber can be configured separately to improve the training efficiency.
Multi-mode: lever pressing or nose poke.
The lever pressing mode can be upgraded to the automatic extension pedal, preventing animals from making mistakes and saving training time.
Multiple stimulation modes: sound, light, electric etc.
Equips with close-loop technology in automatic pellet dispenser, ensure one pellet drops at a time.
Equips with video monitoring system, to observe the animal in the operant chamber directly.
Conforms to the requirements of GLP.
Wide compatibility with optogenetics, electrophysiology.
Supports up to 32 channels of simultaneous testing
Experimental paradigm: Feeding trough training, left-right training learning, preference pole test, visual cue discrimination, attention shift, delayed matching, drug discrimination
Independent signal detection control in each box to precise detect the signal in the experiment.
Each secondary controller comes with various signal indicator, experiment process can be accurately judged through the indicator without opening the insulation box, thus to reduce the human interference.
Each operant chamber is connected to the controller through latest technology like wireless connection.
Simple and easy wire connections.
Test Chamber
Circular hole is equipped in the top cover that allow the tethered drug delivery system and fiber optic EEG electrodes to easily enter the room.
Integrated operant chamber.
Electric Shock Grid
The grid current ranges from 0 to 5.0 mA, with step 0.01 mA.
Electric shock duration 1ms-655s, shock interval and duration can be set according to the experiment.
Transformer transverse current electrical stimulation. The voltage is automatically adjusted according to the dry and wet condition of the animal body surface.
Sound Attenuation Cubicle: Double hollow PVC board, with multi-layer sound-proof insulation material that attenuates environment disturbance, six sides fire retardant sound insulation board in inner wall.
Sound insulation > 35dB.
General size 625 x535 x690mm. Easy to clean, resistant to stains and moisture.
Fan: Programmable 12v,500MA DC. Used as ambient background noise, can also be used for ventilation, dust cover included.
Camera: Researcher can observe the animal status and save the experiment video in real time, avoid the negative impact on the experiment caused by opening the door or the window to observe the animal during the experiment.
Lighting: Power 5w, color temperature 6500K, manually opened.
