IntelliCage

Automated Cognitive & Behavioral Phenotyping for Group-Housed Mice & Rats

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IntelliCage, automated behavioral assessment, home cage monitoring, mice, rats, social interaction, enriched environment, cognitive performance, animal welfare, minimal handling, high reproducibility, standardized setup, animal gate, controlled access, RFID identification, programmable protocols, running wheels, metabolic cages, stress reduction, research workflow.
IntelliCage system for cognitive testing of 16 mice
IntelliCage system for cognitive testing of 16 mice

Automated Group Housing with Individual Monitoring

Behavioral data often tell us less about cognition and more about stress.

IntelliCage changes that. It is a fully automated system that allows group-housed mice to perform cognitive and social tasks without human interference.

Using RFID technology one IntelliCage can accommodate and track up to 16 mice or 8 rats while preserving natural social interaction. Its enriched and standardized environment minimizes handling, reduces stress, and delivers highly reproducible data with minimal workload.

To expand experimental control, an intelligent animal gate enables automated conditional access between the IntelliCage and external devices, streamlining workflows without disturbing the animals.

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Hardware Blueprint for Diverse Experiments

4 operant conditioning corners
With dual liquid reward, sensors and actors, each corner has a built-in RFID antenna to identify animal presence. Each corner can accommodate one mouse at a time.
Special lid holder for easy cleaning during the long-term experiments
Air-puff valve
Presence detector
3 multicolor – LEDs
Nose poke sensor (light barrier)
Tip of water cap (licking detection)
Closable door to water access
Central compartment
Spacious central compartment with food grid and shelter, mice used to rest and sleep in red houses.
Each corner is equipped with two motorized doors to give and close access to the drinking bottle

Benefits Compared to Classical Behavioral Systems

IntelliCage provides a unified and automated platform for assessing a wide range of rodent behaviors like spontaneous activity, circadian rhythm, spatial preference, corner exploration, and complex patrolling patterns, all within a single standardized home-cage environment. By eliminating manual handling and human scoring, IntelliCage delivers higher data consistency and reproducibility across laboratories than traditional open-field or water-maze–based methods, while measuring the same core behavioral traits.

Your Benefits:
• Broad behavioral coverage in one system: activity, exploration, learning, and spatial preference
• Higher reproducibility through automated, standardized measurements
• Reduced variability by minimizing human handling and environmental disruption
• Continuous long-term monitoring for richer behavioral profiles
• Direct comparability to traits measured in classic tests (e.g., exploration, locomotion)
• Greater efficiency by focusing researcher time on interpretation rather than manual scoring

Openfield activity graph IntelliCage

Locomotor and Exploratory Activity

The IntelliCage excels in exploratory behavior and locomotor activity assessments compared to traditional tests. Classic methods show data variability, leading to complex strain-by-laboratory interactions. IntelliCage providis automated and standardized measurements, ensuring higher data reproducibility accross sdifferent labs.
Automated behavioral testing system for rodents measuring spatial learning with paradigms comparable to the Morris water maze, designed to significantly accelerate experiments. The platform enables efficient cognitive testing and reduces experimental workload by up to 40× compared to traditional methods, allowing researchers to perform more studies and speed up scientific discovery.

Spatial Learning

The system effectively measures spatial learning through paradigms similar to the Morris water maze test, but with significant time-saving benefits. Our research demonstrates a remarkable decrease in workload – up to 40 times faster than traditional methods, allowing researchers to conduct more experiments and expedite discoveries.
IntelliCage system for rodents showing automated tracking of spatial preferences and corner visits, enabling analysis of social interactions and communication within a group of mice.

Social Behavior

IntelliCage facilitates the exploration of social interactions between rodents. By capturing parameters like spatial preferences and corner visitation patterns, researchers can gain valuable insights into social dynamics and communication within rodent groups.

Locomotor and Exploratory Activity

Openfield activity graph IntelliCage

Modified from Lipp et al., 2005

Spatial Learning

IntelliCage data shows more reproducibility over Morris Water Maze test
Automated behavioral testing system for rodents measuring spatial learning with paradigms comparable to the Morris water maze, designed to significantly accelerate experiments. The platform enables efficient cognitive testing and reduces experimental workload by up to 40× compared to traditional methods, allowing researchers to perform more studies and speed up scientific discovery.

Social Behavior

IntelliCage allows studying social hierarchy
IntelliCage system for rodents showing automated tracking of spatial preferences and corner visits, enabling analysis of social interactions and communication within a group of mice.

Why Scientist Switch to IntelliCage?

Naturalistic social housing within a standardized home-cage environment

Fully automated behavioral and cognitive assessment with individual identification

Minimal human intervention, reducing stress and improving task validity

High reproducibility and efficiency through continuous, unbiased data collection

Improved animal welfare through reduced handling and low-stress procedures

Extendable via programmable access control for complex studies

What Makes IntelliCage Unique?

Study Natural Behavior in Social Groups
House up to 16 mice or 8 rats together and collect individual behavioral data without isolation. This enables ecologically valid research and reduces stress-induced variability, thus leading to cleaner, more interpretable results.

Capture Rich Behavioral Data 24/7
Continuous monitoring across light and dark phases provides a complete picture of circadian rhythms, learning trajectories, and spontaneous behavior. This data cannot be captured with short, human-run tests.

Run Established Behavioral Paradigms Automatically
Validated tasks such as spatial learning, reversal learning, fixed ratio, and DRL can be implemented without manual handling. This increases standardization, reduces experimenter bias, and ensures protocol fidelity across studies and sites.

Reduce Labor and Resource Burden
Because animals remain in their home cage and tests run automatically, staff time, handling, and associated variability are dramatically minimized. Multiple paradigms can run in parallel without increasing workload.

Scale Up for High Throughput Screening
Operate up to four IntelliCages on one computer, enabling simultaneous testing of 64 mice or 32 rats. Ideal for phenotyping pipelines, consortium studies, or drug screening where large cohorts are essential.

Tailor Experiments to Your Scientific Question
Flexible, module-based programming allows you to design simple to highly complex behavioral protocols. Researchers can adapt tasks to genotype-specific needs, developmental stages, or intervention studies without hardware changes.

Diverse Behavioral Paradigms

Enables unbiased assessment of natural activity, circadian rhythms, and exploration without human interference, providing high ecological validity.

Reveals how animals navigate space and structure their daily routines, offering sensitive measures of hippocampal function and cognitive flexibility.

Allows detection of learning strategies and memory retention by quantifying how reliably animals choose or avoid specific locations.

Measures cognitive flexibility and adaptability – key readouts for prefrontal cortex function and disease models involving executive deficits.

Captures complex, self-organized behavioral routines that provide insight into habit formation and procedural memory.

Determines how effectively animals detect, interpret, and act upon environmental cues, enabling fine-grained analysis of sensory and cognitive processing.

Allows automated quantification of reward sensitivity using flavored or sweetened solutions, supporting research in affective disorders.

Reveals dominance structures and social strategies in group-housed animals, enabling ethologically meaningful assessments impossible in single-animal tests.

Provides precise control over reward and punishment schedules to measure motivation, decision-making, and instrumental learning.

Evaluates sustained effort, motivation, and motor planning under standardized operant conditions.

Tests impulse control and timing accuracy, supporting studies on attention, inhibition, and executive function.

Quantifies learning of aversive contingencies, allowing non-invasive assessment of anxiety-related and avoidance behavior.

Tracks how animals process, store, and update information over time, enabling long-term cognitive profiling in disease and intervention studies.

Dark box tuThe Dark Tunnel Box (DTB) is an innovative environmental enrichment module designed for automated behavioral phenotyping in rodents.nnel

Dark Tunnel Box – Natural Shelter for Better IntelliCage Data

The Dark Tunnel Box (DTB) adds a protected, burrow-like refuge directly underneath the IntelliCage, allowing rodents to express natural hiding and resting behavior. This reduces stress, stabilizes baselines, and enhances the clarity of cognitive and behavioral readouts in long-term automated studies.

Why does it improve your science?

  • Lower stress variance → clearer learning and memory signals
  • More naturalistic behavior → improved translational validity
  • Higher reproducibility → consistent results across cohorts and labs
  • Better task engagement → stronger effects in reward-based paradigms

By lowering anxiety-driven variability, the DTB helps establish stable baselines and improves reproducibility across long-term 24/7 automated testing, even in complete darkness. Researchers gain deeper insight into learning, anxiety modulation, and social interaction within a group-housed, fully automated environment.

Why Scientists Choose the Dark Tunnel Box?

Naturalistic Enrichment
Provides a dark, burrow-like refuge that supports species-typical behaviors, creating a more ecologically relevant IntelliCage environment.

Stress and Anxiety Reduction
Allows animals to self-regulate and recover in a protected space, reducing anxiety-driven variability that can mask cognitive or treatment effects.

Improved Animal Welfare
Maintains essential hiding and resting opportunities that align with good husbandry practice and support long-term well-being during continuous testing.

Superior Data Quality and Reproducibility
Stabilizes behavioral baselines and minimizes stress-related noise, yielding clearer phenotypes and more consistent results across cohorts and laboratories.

Enhanced Mechanistic Insight for Neurobiology
Reduces confounding stress activation of neural circuits, enabling more accurate interpretation of learning, motivation, anxiety, and affective processes.

Seamless Integration and Workflow Efficiency
Works as a plug-and-play extension of IntelliCage, synchronizing automatically with existing RFID tracking and behavioral modules to enrich studies without adding workload.

IntelliCage Software – Powering Smarter, Faster Behavioral Research

The IntelliCage software suite transforms complex behavioral studies into streamlined, fully automated workflows. Designed for researchers who demand precision and efficiency, its three powerful modules (Designer, Controller, and Analyzer) work together to deliver effortless experiment setup, flawless execution, and deep, high-resolution insights into rodent behavior. Whether you are running simple preference tests or multi-phase cognitive protocols, IntelliCage software gives you the control, clarity, and confidence to accelerate discovery in a social, real-world experimental environment.

  • Flexible Cluster Configuration
  • Detailed Behavioral Event Mapping
  • Intuitive Graphical User Interface
  • Fully Modular Design for Any Paradigm
  • Automated Day/Night Patterns and Scheduling
  1. Define the complete hardware configuration for your IntelliCage setup.
  2. Create detailed animal profiles including ID, transponder, sex, group, and cluster assignment.
  3. Design single-phase or multi-phase experiments tailored to your cognitive, behavioral, or pharmacological research goals.

Designer lets you build complex behavioral paradigms with confidence and efficiency. No coding is required.

  • Records all key events (e.g. visits, nosepokes and licks) and environmental parameters in real time.
  • Provides instant visualization of sensor and actor activity as the study unfolds.
  • Displays per-animal performance graphs for ongoing behavioral assessment.
  • Issues alerts when animals deviate from expected behavior (e.g., no visits or licks).

Controller ensures flawless automated execution, continuous oversight, and complete experimental traceability.

  • Filter data using Boolean logic to isolate specific conditions or time windows.
  • Compare filtered results while retaining access to the original dataset.
  • Save reusable filter presets to standardize analysis across experiments.
  • Export images and data files for publications and statistical software.

Analyzer gives you the power to transform dense behavioral streams into meaningful, reproducible scientific insights.

 

Publications

Kahnau, P., Jaap, A., Diederich, K., Gygax, L., Rudeck, J., & Lewejohann, L. (2023). Determining the value of preferred goods based on consumer demand in a home-cage based test for mice. Behavior Research Methods, 55(2), 751–766.

Kiryk, A., Janusz, A., Zglinicki, B., Turkes, E., Knapska, E., Konopka, W., Lipp, H.-P., & Kaczmarek, L. (2020). IntelliCage as a tool for measuring mouse behavior – 20 years perspective. Behavioural Brain Research, 388, 112620.

Mohammadi, F., Bertrand, N., & Rudkowska, I. (2023). C57bl/6 Mice Show Equivalent Taste Preferences toward Ruminant and Industrial Trans Fatty Acids. Nutrients, 15(3), Article 3.

Pagano, R., Salamian, A., Zielinski, J., Beroun, A., Nalberczak-Skóra, M., Skonieczna, E., Cały, A., Tay, N., Banaschewski, T., Desrivières, S., Grigis, A., Garavan, H., Heinz, A., Brühl, R., Martinot, J.-L., Martinot, M.-L. P., Artiges, E., Nees, F., Orfanos, D. P., … Radwanska, K. (2023). Arc controls alcohol cue relapse by a central amygdala mechanism. Molecular Psychiatry, 28(2), Article 2.

Plum, T., Binzberger, R., Thiele, R., Shang, F., Postrach, D., Fung, C., Fortea, M., Stakenborg, N., Wang, Z., Tappe-Theodor, A., Poth, T., MacLaren, D. A. A., Boeckxstaens, G., Kuner, R., Pitzer, C., Monyer, H., Xin, C., Bonventre, J. V., Tanaka, S., … Rodewald, H.-R. (2023). Mast cells link immune sensing to antigen-avoidance behaviour. Nature, 1–9.

IntelliCage data have been published in over 500 peer-reviewed articles, including publications in PNAS, Molecular Psychiatry or Nature Communications. The IntelliCage allows a transfer of validated behavioral paradigms into an automated setup, complementing usual behavioral testing procedures.

“The Intellicage system is a great ethological platform providing high-throughput standardized quantification of the home-cage behavior of group-housed mice during circadian cycle. This allows good data comparability and reproducibility, and there is a high flexibility in the protocols to analyze both spontaneous and conditioned responses. In this socially-enriched and ethically-compliant environment, complex behaviors are recorded without major bias due to experimenter intervention and without stress compared to standard tests in which mice stand alone.”

Dr. Cyrille Vaillend
PI (DR1) | NeuroPSI Institute, Paris Saclay University

“…our laboratory has 6 IntelliCages along with add-ons (2 social boxes). I have more than 5 years of experience with this system and can provide only positive feedback regarding IntelliCage. Both hardware and software are reliable, in addition support by TSE is excellent. The system offers a great flexibility in design of various experiments…”

Dr. Vootele Voikar
University of Helsinki

“Following or avoiding other mice in corner visits” … “this is the first method that permits the mapping of the social networks of mice and the effects of those social networks on reward-induced behaviors”

Parkitna et al
PloS One 2014

“We are excited to be using the Intellicage system from TSE to further our understanding of legacies of stress. Being able to perform experiments with minimal experimenter-associated interference has elevated our portfolio of behavioral neuroscience approaches.”

Prof. Brian G. Dias, PhD
Professor of Pediatrics | University of Southern California

“IntelliCage plays a pivotal role in our translational research on Autistic spectrum disorder. We can assess 11 clinically relevant traits in mice within 2 months and screened 8 ASD models so far. This revealed shared (e.g., dominance) and model-specific (e.g., restrictive movement patterns) traits across models, foundational in ongoing drug development, highlighting the immense role IntelliCage plays preceding clinical trials.”

Seico Benner
Senior Researcher | NIES/Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Japan

Frequently Asked Questions

IntelliCage allows for the assessment of a broad range of spontaneous and learned behaviors, including:

  • Spontaneous activity patterns and circadian rhythms
  • Spatial learning, memory and reversal learning
  • Operant and associative learning (e.g. Fixed ratio, DRL paradigms)
  • Cognitive flexibility and aspects of executive function
  • Motivation- and reward-related behaviors relevant to addiction research

IntelliCage has been employed in various research fields, including:

  • Neuroscience
  • Psychiatry
  • Pharmacology
  • Genetics

It has been used to study models of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, depression, autism, and addiction.

Yes, the IntelliCage has been effectively utilized to model various aspects of substance use disorders (SUDs) in rodents. Using programmable access to liquids and operant conditioning schedules, researchers can model aspects of substance use disorders such as voluntary consumption, seeking behavior, extinction, and reinstatement under controlled and automated conditions.

Yes, researchers have developed a cognitive bias paradigm within the IntelliCage system to measure emotional states in mice. This automated, home-cage-based test allows mice to participate voluntarily, reducing stress and providing insights into their expectations about future events, which can reflect optimism or pessimism.

Development of an IntelliCage-based cognitive bias test for mice – PubMed

While IntelliCage primarily monitors activity at the corners, integrating RFID antennas beneath the cage floor or using video tracking systems can provide comprehensive data on overall locomotion and social interactions within the home cage.

A single Intellicage can accommodate up to 16 mice or 8 rats per cage, depending on strain, size and local animal welfare rules.For higher throughput, multiple cages can be operated in parallel, allowing for the testing of up to 64 mice or 32 rats across four cages.

Each IntelliCage is a fully automated home-cage system equipped with four operant conditioning corners, each equipped with:

  • RFID antennas for individual animal identification
  • Nose poke sensors
  • Motorized doors controlling access to water bottles
  • LED cues
  • Air-puff valves for aversive conditioning
  • Lick detectors

Yes. IntelliCage is specifically designed for continuous, 24/7 monitoring over extended periods ranging from days to several weeks or longer. Because animals remain group-housed in their home cage and experiments run fully automatically, the system is ideally suited for longitudinal studies with minimal experimenter intervention and high reproducibility.

No. Once animals are introduced and transponder-tagged, experiments run fully automatically without daily handling, significantly reducing stress and experimenter-induced variability.

Compatible with

voluntary home-cage wheel for exercise

Running Wheels

Automated wheels for voluntary or active exercise tests in mice or rats, including workload module for resistance running.

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PhenoMaster NG

Metabolic cage system for mouse, rat or larger animals. Suitable for calorimetry, behavioral and physiological studies.

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Stellar Telemetry

Multichannel implantable telemetry for In-vivo monitoring of physiological parameters.

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NeuroLux

Wireless battery-free optogenetics system for freely moving animals in any setup.

Learn more

Center of Knowledge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eJU4l51tUk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IiERXzP4K8
https://youtu.be/vXnmJ3efW7I?si=UDDLEyzjTGc2xewc
https://youtu.be/5-VV4ISunIw?si=RSN5Wx5vCVVAT59K
https://youtu.be/fz6_nCbIs6Q?si=UvM-FoCdvqg6mcfQ
https://youtu.be/2_XgtLV0Spg?si=Q3It4wtENmPacBIa
https://youtu.be/Ql1R520Kg5o?si=Qva3DtOR-LOXYRcP

IntelliCage blog posts

Comparison diagram: classical single-session cognitive testing in isolated novel apparatus versus longitudinal home-cage testing in group-housed mice Funnel diagram showing over 400 Alzheimer's drug compounds tested in mice narrowing to fewer than 5 with human clinical efficacy

Why Alzheimer's Mouse Models Show Cognitive Rescue That Doesn't Translate

Over 400 drugs have rescued cognition in Alzheimer’s mouse models. Fewer than 5 have shown efficacy in humans (Langness et al., 2025). That gap is…

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IntelliCage automated home-cage behavioral testing system with group-housed mice and RFID-equipped operant conditioning corners

8 Drug Classes Tested in IntelliCage: What Group-housed Cognitive Phenotyping Revealed that Standard Tests Missed

IntelliCage is an automated home-cage behavioral testing system developed by TSE Systems. It enables continuous cognitive phenotyping of group-housed rodents using RFID individual identification and…

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LinkedIn post by TSE Systems about behavioral phenotyping. Image shows gloved hands holding a pipette over a sample in a laboratory setting. Text reads: 'The Best Data Comes From Animals That Don't Know They're Being Tested' with subtitle 'A principle for behavioral phenotyping that changes what you measure.' Cyan 'Best Practices' badge in top right corner

How Handling Stress Contaminates Behavioral Data and What to do Instead

There is a confounder in almost every behavioral neuroscience study that nobody mentioned  in the methods section. Handling stress. The moment you pick up an…

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Maternal Immune Activation as a Neurodevelopmental Risk Factor: New Insights into ADHD-Like Endophenotypes in a Mouse Model

Maternal Immune Activation as a Neurodevelopmental Risk Factor: New Insights into ADHD-Like Endophenotypes in a Mouse Model

Overview Epidemiological evidence consistently links maternal infection during pregnancy to elevated offspring risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, including ADHD, schizophrenia, and autism spectrum disorder. Yet the…

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The Power of The Hippocampus: Uncovered Stress-Induced Memory Enhancements

The exciting study titled “Hippocampal Mechanisms Support Cortisol-Induced Memory Enhancements” Hippocampal Mechanisms Support Cortisol-Induced Memory Enhancements | Journal of Neuroscience (jneurosci.org) explores the intricate link…

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Exploring Cognitive Aging: Insights from different Studies in Rodent Models Using the IntelliCage System

Life expectancy has increased greatly over the last decades, but it has been associated with a progressive rise in the incidence of age-related diseases, including…

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