The parallel rod floor apparatus is designed for assessing the effects of drugs, brain damage and disease on motor coordination and fatigue and is ideal for use with knockout and transgenic mice. The test's high throughput design makes it an extremely versatile and valuable screening and phenotyping tool.

Adapted from the apparatus first described and developed by Drs Kamens and Crabbe (1, 2) the parallel rod floor test is a new model of ataxia in mice that allows for the simultaneous measurement of ataxia and locomotor activity, adding variety to the battery of other tests currently available.

The test yields two dependent variables not necessarily provided by other test: number of errors (foot slips) and horizontal distance travelled (cm). By using a ratio (errors per cm travelled) to index ataxia, this apparatus corrects for individual differences in activity and provides a robust and unique measure of genetic contributions to locomotor incoordination. This contrasts with several other measures of ataxia, such as the Rota-rod, where the parameters of the task (e.g., rate of acceleration of rotation) have been shown to have large effects on the pattern of strain sensitivity.

1. HM Kamens et al (2005) Characterization of the parallel rod floor apparatus to test motor incoordination in mice. Genes, Brain and Behavior 4, 253–266

2. HM Kamens and JC Crabbe (2007) The parallel rod floor test: a measure of ataxia in mice. Nature Protocols 2, 277-28