an iranian simple, inexpensive and programmable motor – driven treadmill for exercising small laboratory rodents

nowadays, research on exercise physiology has developed. many of studies try to discover body responses or adaptations to exercise training or physical activity. in many cases, human beings are not suitable models to study these mechanisms in vivo due to ethical and legal limitations. laboratory animals especially mice and rats are appropriate models for these researches. treadmill is an excellent devise to cover these aims. by a treadmill, intensity, duration and mode of exercise can be easily manipulated. so, the aim of this study was to design and construct a new and updated version of treadmill for laboratory rodents. this treadmill had more advantages than the previous or foreign models including 12 lines, computerized, portable and easy to handle, easy to work with, lighter, positive and negative inclination, range of speed from zero to 100 m/min, manual and automated shocker, cheap, dependent on national technology.