Can we reproducibly measure a behavioral or autonomic thermoregulatory response of a mouse to a drug administered intravenously or into the brain?

To prospective academic collaborators: Yes, we can!

When you need a high-quality measurement of a thermoregulatory response for your important study, think about a collaboration with FeverLab. Studying autonomic and behavioral thermoregulatory responses in unanesthetized, fully conscious animals is what we have been doing for years. In all our setups (see Experimental setups), we can determine whether the conditions are thermoneutral, subneutral, or supraneutral for any individual animal studied. All our experiments are conducted at a tightly controlled ambient temperature. In all our setups (except for the thermogradient), we can administer drugs without touching the animal or disturbing it in any other way. We can work in several animal species, but prefer dealing with rats (first choice) and mice (second choice).

Here are some papers from FeverLab that are heavy on methodology, describe our developments, or analyze methodological issues related to thermometry in rats and mice.

Garami A, Pakai E, Oliveira DL, Steiner AA, Wanner SP, Almeida MC, Lesnikov VA, Gavva NR, Romanovsky AA. Thermoregulatory phenotype of the Trpv1 knockout mouse: thermoeffector dysbalance with hyperkinesis. J Neurosci 31: 1721-1733, 2011.

Almeida MC, Steiner AA, Branco LGS, Romanovsky AA. Cold-seeking behavior as a thermoregulatory strategy in systemic inflammation. Eur J Neurosci 23: 3359-3367, 2006.

Rudaya AY, Steiner AA, Robbins JR, Dragic AS, Romanovsky AA. Thermoregulatory responses to lipopolysaccharide in the mouse: dependence on the dose and ambient temperature. Am J Physiol 289: R1244-R1252, 2005.

Romanovsky AA, Simons CT, Kulchitsky VA. “Biphasic” fevers often consist of more than two phases. Am J Physiol 275: R323-R331, 1998.

Romanovsky AA, Kulchitsky VA, Simons CT, Sugimoto N. Methodology of fever research: why are polyphasic fevers often thought to be biphasic? Am J Physiol 275: R332-R338, 1998.

Romanovsky AA, Ivanov AI, Shimansky YP. Selected contribution: Ambient temperature for experiments in rats: a new method for determining the zone of thermal neutrality. J Appl Physiol 92: 2667-2679, 2002.

Romanovsky AA, Almeida MC, Aronoff DM, Ivanov AI, Konsman JP, Steiner AA, Turek VF. Fever and hypothermia in systemic inflammation: recent discoveries and revisions. Front Biosci 10: 2193-2216, 2005.

Free PDFs of the publications listed above can be downloaded from the Publications page.