/ Activities

Pre-Clinical facility

The pre-clinical imaging facility provides housing and husbandry services for laboratory animals used in imaging procedures at ICNAS. The facility serves as a platform for researchers that intend to perform animal experiments at the centre and can provide a range of services that include animal care, imaging with PET, SPECT and MRI (including hybrid studies) as well as image processing/quantification and biodistribution.

Description

The available animal facilities include individual rooms for quarantine, mice, rats, imaging, and an acoustic room for behaviour and vocalization studies. The Animal Facility is licensed by the National Authority Direção-Geral de Alimentação e Veterinária (DGAV). All personnel is certified according to European and Portuguese legislation and all procedures are done according to national and European guidelines in animal welfare. Animal users must had complete trainings accredited by DGAV, that include: (function A) performing procedures on animals, (function B) design of procedures and projects, (function C) care of animals and (function D) euthanasia of animals (DL.113/2013).

We contribute to better research, based on high ethical standards and humane treatment of animals. Our services contribute to reproducible and reliable research data based on good scientific methods.

ICNAS-UC is a signatory to the Transparency Agreement on Animal Research in Portugal.

Animal Fac Sponsors

Services

Animal Facilities

The team provides routine daily care for all laboratory animals housed in the facility unless otherwise specified by the researcher including daily monitoring and good provision of food and water. Environmental conditions for each species are maintained as specified in the British National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Temperature, humidity and light cycles may be modified if required by experimental design, providing that it doesn’t disturb others animals or studies.

9.4T Animal MRI

In 2013 was installed on ICNAS the ultrafield magnet 9.4T from Bruker (94/20 USR) with different coils and resonators for mice and rat. The Paravision 6.0 is the most recent software and with intuitive workflow. Multiple systems and organs can be studied due to a variety of application packages (cardiology, diffusion, angiography, perfusion, spectroscopy, fMRI and DCE, relaxation, short TE imaging and method development framework). Most studies are focused on neuroscience and the cardiovascular system.

PET Imaging

Small animal PET imaging is performed using a prototype high-resolution animal RPC-PET system developed by LIP-Coimbra in collaboration with ICNAS and is currently used for biomedical research as well as radiotracer development. Animal PET imaging at ICNAS is greatly enhanced by the availability of a full GMP PET production facility complete with cyclotron and fully–equipped radiochemistry labs that are currently producing more than 20 different tracers based on e.g. 18F, 11C, 68Ga and 64Cu.

tDCS

tDCS is a non-invasive, painless brain stimulation treatment that uses direct electrical currents to stimulate specific parts of the brain. There are two types of stimulation with tDCS: anodal and cathodal stimulation. Anodal stimulation acts to excite neuronal activity while cathodal stimulation inhibits or reduces neuronal activity. Several studies suggest it may be a valuable tool for the treatment of neuropsychiatric conditions.

Vocalization Lab

An Avisoft Bioacoustics system for the analysis of rodent’s vocalisations is available. It allows the implementation of diverse behavioral studies in rats and mice. The system operates in a frequency range of 2- 200 kHz, can record with two channels simultaneously, and has a synchronism system. ICNAS has also a playback system (one channel) that allows using recorded vocalizations as a stimulus in diverse rodent tests. This system operates in a frequency range between 1-120 kHz.

Animal Behaviour Lab

Morriz Water Maze; Social Interaction Test; Novel object recognition; Novel place recognition

OCT - Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography

Preclinical ICNAS facility is equipped with Bioptigen SD-OCT from Leica Microsystems. It allows non-invasive 3D-HD full-volume OCT acquisitions of mouse and rat retina and cornea. Built-in Diver™ Analysis Software provides an automated segmentation tool over the entire 3D-HD full-FOV volumetric scan. Thickness reports include statistical results and layer-based thickness values, heat maps and ETDRS grid layout allowing for comparison of tissue sectors over time.

Photoacoustic VEVO LAZR-X

Photoacoustic imaging is acquired using photoacoustic tomographic system model LAZR-X, FujiFilm. The available wavelength range from 680 to 2300 nm, allowing imaging axial resolutions of 150 micrometers (transducer of 15MHz) and 40 micrometers (transducer of 40MHz).