Porsolt swim test

The forced swim test (also known as Porsolt test or behavioral despair test) is a well-characterized paradigm to analyze depression-like behavior in rodents. It is therefore often used to measure the effects of antidepressant drugs.

As was originally established in rats, in a pretest the animal is made to swim in a water bath from which it cannot escape. During the test session, the amount of time spent immobile is measured and is taken as a measure of hopelessness, or behavioral despair in the animal. TSE Systems offers the PhenoTracker and VideoMot2 system to analyze the motility behavior of swimming animals.

• Antidepressant drug screening
• Automated recording and analyzing of animal activity
• Reanalyze data after the experiment has been finished
• Complete access to raw data
• Parallel storage of digital files

A related paradigm is the tail suspension test.