Tail Suspension was developed in the late 1980’s as an alternative to the “behavioral despair” or swim test where the animal is forced to swim in an arena with no possibility for escape. Similarly in this method, the animal is suspended from its tail for a 6 minute test (user definable) and cannot “escape.” During the test the system records the number of times (events) each subject enters into an escape behavior (struggles), the duration of the event and the average strength of each event.