Last Updated on July 24, 2020
Built out of a desire to help standardize behavioral neuroscience research
One of our brands O’Hara, a manufacturing company based out of Japan, has been developing and manufacturing equipment for behavioral experiments for over 40 years. O’Hara got its start by designing and manufacturing equipment for pharmaceutical companies that were doing efficacy testing on various therapeutic drugs. They quickly realized that there was no method of standardization across behavioral studies from different labs, research institutes, and pharmaceutical companies, which they felt would have detrimental consequences on data integrity. With this issue at the forefront of their minds, O’Hara began developing automated behavior tests to improve the reliability of behavioral data. This newfound focus was born out of a desire to help improve the reproducibility crisis that has been plaguing Neuroscience research for several years now – That is the inability to replicate scientific studies across experiments and research institutions.
What is the reproducibility crisis?
Reproducibility or replicability from a research standpoint is the idea that a given set of experimental findings should be able to be replicated following the same procedures. The inability to replicate basic scientific findings across research institutions and even across experiments is a major issue plaguing Neuroscience research today and is particularly prevalent in animal studies. This is not hard to believe given that the use of animals themselves provides inherent variability, even when all other factors are controlled for. To read more about this issue and what we are doing to try and alleviate the problem click here.
Ohara offers a variety of automated systems to help you standardize the data collection process
Don’t see what you are looking for?
O’Hara is committed to making customizable solutions to fit the researcher’s specific needs, and therefore our products can be tailored to better fit your needs. In fact, two of our products, the Free Maze and the Self head-Restraining Platform were created out of collaborations between research labs and O’Hara.
Learn more about the background behind the making of the Free Maze here.
Learn more about the motivation behind the Self Head-Restraining Platform here.