An 8-cage imaging system for automated analyses of mouse behavior

Abstract

The analysis of mouse behavior is used in biomedical research to study brain function in health and disease. Well-established rapid assays allow for high-throughput analyses of behavior but have several drawbacks, including measurements of daytime behaviors in a nocturnal animal, effects of animal handling, and the lack of an acclimation period in the testing apparatus. We developed a novel 8-cage imaging system, with animated visual stimuli, for automated analyses of mouse behavior in 22-hour overnight recordings. Software for image analysis was developed in two open-source programs, ImageJ and DeepLabCut. The imaging system was used to measure multiple behaviors, including acclimation to the novel cage environment, day and nighttime activity, stretch-attend postures, location in various cage areas, and habituation to animated visual stimuli. These behaviors were summarized in behavioral profiles, which may be used in further studies to examine treatments for neural disorders.

Behavioral effects of visual stimuli in adult zebrafish using a novel eight-tank imaging system

“…With the availability of advanced imaging and computational tools, one can resolve complex behaviors into simpler bits, which was not possible in the past. The quantitative analysis of behavior provides a great way to not only study animal behavior in the natural environment but also to check the response of animals to various stimuli by dissecting a complex set of behaviors into individual well-defined easy to easy-to-interpret components ( Gore et al, 2023 ; Hernandez et al, 2023 ). The current study uses a robust, inexpensive, and flexible method for behavioral quantification of responses to visual stimuli in a relatively high-throughput format.…”

“…The image acquisition was similar to the method described in a previous study ( Hernandez et al, 2023 ), which used similar setup to study mouse behavior. We used SkyStudioPro (version 1.1.0.30), a freely available program developed by DjSadhu in the Netherlands 1 to control two webcams.…”