A simple design of shock-scrambler unit for studies on foot-shock elicited aggression in rats.

A simplified circuit design for fabricating a shock scrambler unit (SSU) is described in this note. This instrument finds application in research studies on aggression behaviour using rats for the experiments. In this experimental production of aggression, an aversive mood is generated in pair of rats kept in a test chamber by giving electric foot-shocks to them, and this evokes the fighting behaviour between them. The shock-scrambler unit causes alterations of state of electric charge in different bars of the floor grid of the experimental chamber at different moments. This prevents the rats from avoiding shocks by standing on grid bars of equal polarity.