The Mouse Translational Research Accelerator Platform (MouseTRAP) directly addresses the urgent and critical challenge of improving clinical translation and patient outcomes. MouseTRAP is centred on a touchscreen-based system that we have developed that allows us to assess mice on tests of high-level cognition that are very similar or identical to those used in human patients. The automation and standardization inherent in this approach achieves more accurate, robust, and reproducible phenotyping of mice than conventional approaches. MouseTRAP pairs these tests with cutting-edge technologies to record or manipulate neuronal, glial or neurochemical activity, which makes it possible to match—millisecond by millisecond—what is happening in the brain with human-relevant cognitive performance. This can be done in healthy mice or in our extensive catalogue of next-generation disease models, making MouseTRAP a state-of-the-art platform for assessment of robust, reproducible and human-relevant cognitive outcomes in mouse models, for either fundamental discovery research or development of knowledge-based therapeutic interventions.
We recently created the first structured open access database for cognitive data obtained in mice, which gives us a mechanism to share our data with labs around the world and enhances transparency and reproducibility in research findings. We have also built an open knowledge-sharing platform that is the heart of an epistemic community of touchscreen cognitive testing system experts. MouseTRAP currently has a local, national, and international user base of around 600 researchers per year. (Find out more about our open science initiatives.)
MouseTRAP is a distinctive platform that operates within Western University and is available to researchers on a fee-for-service basis. Various levels of support are available to users at different rates: MouseTRAP technicians can conduct a full touchscreen-based cognitive assessment in a mouse model, users can be given training and access to equipment to run their own experiments, or specialized technical advice can be provided to users who wish to bring new techniques to their own labs. In all cases, our highly qualified core staff provide advice on techniques, experimental design, the interpretation of the experiment and presentation of the methods and results for publication. This specialized service uses a collection of mouse lines that can be accessed by users to model neurodegenerative or neuropsychiatric diseases or manipulate genetically-defined populations of cells.
Watch Associate Professor, Dept. of Philosophy at Western University, Jacqueline Sullivan describe the MouseTRAP platform in a recent talk titled “Touchscreens, Open Science, and the Epistemic Community.”