The marmoset monkey is a small primate. This primate is used for developing certain disease models, e.g. Parkinson's disease, experimental autoimmune encephalitis and anxiety. To monitor the disease activity objectively and to have a quantitative read-out system for the effect of drug treatment, TNO Pharma has developed several read-out systems that have proven very useful in this respect:

1. A motor activity test (the bungalow test) has been developed that registers the free movement of the animal in a closed system existing of four compartments each of which is interconnected with three other compartments. The time an animal remains in one compartment and the number of compartment changes are automatically registered.
2. A hand-eye coordination test has been developed to register the learned behavior and motor activity. The learned behavior is the animal learns to grasp a sweet through one of two shutters in a panel that opens after a light signal has appeared above the shutter. A robot transports the sweet reward behind the shutter with different speed.
3. The startle reflex test (like in the rat) uses the pressure of the front and hind legs when the animal is exposed to a frightening event (a sound). If the startle stimulus is given within a period of fear, for instance when the animal is conditioned to show fear, startle response is clearly enhanced.
4. Neurophysiological parameters: Visual Evoked Responses and EEG. These were recorded using telemetric approach.

The application of those read-out systems in monitoring the development of symptoms of Parkinson's disease, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and anxiety will be shown.