HomeCageScan is the flagship product in the PhenoScan Suite series of software for automatically studying unconstrained rodent behaviors in a home cage for either short or extended periods of time (24/7). Our premise for developing HomeCageScan is that behavioral phenotypes are often best detected when the rodent is unconstrained by experimenter manipulation. Thus, automated high throughput analysis of behaviors in the home cage would be a powerful tool for phenotypic screening of animals for gene manipulations or drug administration.
Automation of analysis would allow quantification of all behaviors and their circadian rhythms over extended periods of time. Thus, the automated analysis can be used to build a profile of the behaviors, their amount, duration, and circadian rhythm for each commonly used rodent strain. This profile can then be compared to the rodent in question and differences from the profile expressed quantitatively. Because gene defects or drug administration that cause developmental disorders in humans usually result in changes in the circadian rhythm of behavior, analysis of organized patterns of behavior across the day should be effective in detecting phenotypes in transgenic and targeted mutant rodents.
The automated system is also able to detect abnormal behaviors that do not normally occur and present the investigator with video clips of such behavior. Abnormalities may also result from a deviation from the regular circadian rhythm of normal behaviors. That is, detection of novel abnormal behaviors is achieved by detecting segments of behavior that do not fit the standard profile for a particular strain of rodent whereas detection of abnormal amounts of a normal behavior is detected by comparing the statistical properties of the standard profile.
HomeCageScan is a perfect fit for longitudinal studies where several animals are studied and tested over long periods. For example, HomeCageScan can be used in disease progression studies by analyzing several animals one day every week for several weeks. The behavior profile for each week can then be compared with other weeks’ data to see what behaviors are altered over the course of the study.
The techniques for automation of the categorization and quantification of all home‐cage behaviors throughout the daily cycle will be a powerful tool for detecting phenotypic effects of gene manipulations or drug administration in rodents. These techniques have been applied to achieve high throughput drug screening as well. System architecture for high throughput screening has been designed that involves analysis of 4 cages on a system. Moreover, with multiple cameras hooked up to HomeCageScan systems, the number of cages analyzed simultaneously can be increased further. Up to 4 animals can be analyzed simultaneously with the High‐Throughput Option. Realtime Option provides the ability to perform analysis in realtime while the video is compressed and saved to the hard‐drive of the computer.
Many advanced features are incorporated, including supporting full color analysis, automatic adapting of changing environment, automated handling of day/night switches, variable speed playback of specific video segment for specific detected behavior, etc.
Complete Turn‐key systems including all necessary Hardware and Software are available. Custom design of your environment to facilitate analysis, including lighting condition setup, IR/red light setup, cage enclosures, video integration, and video‐feed to computer is also available.
This product is protected by US Patents # 6,678,413; 7,068,842; 7,209,588.
TopScan is a general purpose Top‐view based behavior analysis system and was the first to use animal body parts (since 2002) to provide the most accurate behavior analysis results possible. It is applicable to a wide range of experiments, from the most basic animal tracking task to more complicated tasks such as Novel Object Recognition requiring precise detection of the nose of the animal exploring an object. TopScan is an extendable framework that comprises 4 separate products – LocoScan, ObjectScan, MazeScan and WaterMazeScan. Any or all of those 4 product combinations may be purchased. Additional functionalities for integration into TopScan include Circling, Flat‐back approach, Grooming and Thigmotactic behaviors. Moreover, TopScan can be directly integrated with other Clever Sys products such as AnnoStar, SocialScanTop, DrugEffectScan, DSRScan, etc.
LocoScan allows automated analysis of locomotor activity. The system has the flexibility that the animal can be placed in an arena with or without bedding. LocoScan outputs detailed statistics about locomotor behavior such as total distance traveled, average speed, average turning angle, etc. It also allows the user to divide the cage or arena into zones of any shape as they want and LocoScan will output zone‐specific statistics including zone entry and exit statistics, average speed and turning angle within each zone, length of stay in each zone, etc.
ObjectScan automatically detects and records sniffing behavior information including object sniffed, duration of sniff, numbers of sniffs at each object, etc. The system uses video taken from the top with objects placed in a pre‐ defined region. ObjectScan ensures that sniffing is counted only when the animal’s nose is in contact (or in a specified distance) with an object, without coloring animal’s head, as it can automatically identify important body parts of the animal such as nose, tail, forelimbs and hind limbs all the time.
MazeScan automates the analysis of experiments conducted on all types of mazes including Elevated Plus Maze, Zero Maze, Radial Arm Maze, Y‐ or T‐ Maze, etc. In addition to detecting traditional parameters like entries into each arm/area and time spent in each arm/area as events, we provide the capability to detect novel parameters such as Stretch‐Attend behavior (SAP), Protected SAP (p‐SAP) and Unprotected SAP (u‐ SAP), Head‐Dipping behavior, Body‐across‐two‐zones (partial incursions into a zone).
WaterMazeScan automates the analysis of the popular Morris Water Maze experiment. The video is taken of the water maze experiment from the top, and WaterMazeScan will analyze this video to give a variety of significant results. In addition to traditional parameters such as latency to platform and distance traveled, we provide advanced measures such as Heading Error (orientation difference from platform direction), Turning Ratio (number of turns per body length traveled), etc. The Turn behavior is special to the WaterMazeScan product and can count the number of turns the animal performs in the water.
All components of TopScan can be applied to achieve high throughput screening as well. System architecture for high throughput screening has been designed that involves analysis of up to 32 arenas on a system, depending on how large the arenas are. Such high levels of throughput are possible as we can integrate multiple cameras together into the TopScan system. The High‐Throughput product option is necessary to analyze more than a single arena simultaneously. The Realtime Option is necessary to perform realtime analysis where the live video feed into the computer is compressed, encoded, saved to the hard drive while simultaneously full analysis of the video is performed.
Many advanced features are incorporated, including supporting full color analysis, automatic adaptation to non‐uniform or changing environment, automated handling of light/dark areas, variable speed playback of specific video segment for specific detected behavior, etc.
Complete Turn‐key systems including all necessary Hardware and Software are available. Custom design of your environment to facilitate analysis, including lighting condition setup, IR/red light setup, cage enclosures, video integration, and video‐feed to computer is also available.
This product is protected by US Patent(s) #6,678,413; 7,068,842; 7,817,824
GaitScan is a component of our NeurodegenScan Suite and meets the needs for gait analysis of animals. Gait analysis allows highly sensitive, noninvasive detection and evaluation of many pathophysiological conditions, such as those occurring in Spinal Cord Injury, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, arthritis, pain, neuromuscular and skeletal muscle diseases.
GaitScan system takes video of animal (mouse or rat) running either on a transparent belt treadmill or on a clear free‐walk runway as input. The video of the ventral view (underside view) of the animal is obtained using a high‐ speed digital camera and each video capture can be 20 seconds (or even more when used with specialized fast hard drive architecture) giving a multitude of stride samples in just one trial. The video essentially captures the foot prints of the animal as they walk/run on the treadmill or the runway device. GaitScan software can work with videos taken from any treadmill or runway device that allows the capture of its footprints on any video capturing hardware system with a high‐speed camera.
GaitScan can reliably analyze the video, and determine various characteristic parameters that are related to the pathophysiological conditions. These parameters include the stance time (paw on the belt), the swing time (paw in the air), total stride time, stride length, foot contact area size, foot pressure (measured using color intensity levels), body‐foot spacing distance (distances between body and feet), foot spacing distances (distance between various feet), running speed, stride frequencies, foot coupling or coordination measures (in‐phase or out‐of‐phase gait patterns of feet), and
Foot Print Analysis related measures such as foot print placement rotation angle with body and toe spread factors (splay). Also calculated are brake time (early part of stance until the paw reaches maximum contact) and propel time (latter portion of stance when the paw is propelling the body. GaitScan also provides Whole Body Movement Information, including information about Body Rotation during walking, Body Shifting (lateral and longitudinal whole body movements) during walking. Body Support information including measures for fraction of time when zero, one, two, three or all four feet are on floor while walking are also provided.
GaitScan outputs the detailed results of these parameters from analysis into Microsoft Excel files and gives statistical results to meet requirements in the research. Advanced functionalities such as batch mode analysis, group export, direct analysis of AVI captured files, and post‐hoc conversion to compressed MPEG videos to save disk‐space are available. A sample screenshot of the GaitScan software is shown below. The stride data is shown on the right for each foot individually. The results are updated as the analysis takes place.
GaitScan includes several new features – a) Ability to measure and display Pressure of a foot during contact with floor; b) Ability to automatically detect and delete outliers as well as portions of the video that are not worthy of analysis, and c) ability to view and export the Ink‐Pad like image that shows the placement positions of the various feet.
This product is protected by US Patent # 8,514,236
Freezing behavior has found wide applications and has become a standard experiment in the study of learning and memory in areas such as molecular biology, genetics, and cognitive science. However, manual observation of freezing behavior is tedious, can contain subjective bias, and suffers from lack of reliability, consistency and practicality. Moreover, it is slow and labor intensive, thus making it impossible to conduct experiments in large quantities. FreezeScan is a tool for automatically detecting freezing states in rodents that fulfills this demand for high throughput screening in Fear Conditioning experiments.
Traditional analysis of freezing behavior utlizes photobeams but is unreliable as the resolution provided by the photobeams is very low. FreezeScan on the other hand is a video‐based tool that provides precise motion control for accurate freezing detection.
FreezeScan accepts video taken from any angle, in a confined chamber. It precisely detects the onset and completion of a freezing behavior of a rodent. It outputs as a sequential list, the occurrences of the freezing behaviors. Further statistics can be analyzed from this output data.
FreezeScan has achieved great accuracy and has been successful in many academic and industry research labs for many types of research projects, including Fear Extinction.
FreezeScan not only detects freezing behavior accurately, but also provides a measurement of the animal’s instantaneous activity level during the experiment, in both quantitative and graphical form, making it possible to recognize startle response.
We also provide the Control Box for controlling Shock, Tone and Lights. The Control Box has the ability to control up to 64 devices. For example, if one wishes to control shock, tone and lights (3 channels) for each box, our Control Box can control 21 chambers simultaneously. If 4 channels are needed per box, then 16 boxes can be controlled simultaneously. Typically, 4 chambers are controlled using a single box.
FreezeScan has the capability to generate the program sequence for controlling various hardware. Or, if using 3rd party control units, FreezeScan has the ability to input the program sequence info or even, auto‐ detect the program intervals based on visual cues in the chamber, such as an LED light turning on/off. Thus FreezeScan can synchronously work with any control program and provide accurate freezing state results based on these intervals, also known as Interval Statistics.
FreezeScan can achieve high throughput screening as well. System architecture for high throughput screening has been designed that involves analysis of up to 4 arenas on a single system, including control of all 4 chambers’ hardware. The High‐Throughput product option is necessary to analyze more than a single arena simultaneously. The Realtime Option is necessary to perform realtime analysis where the live video feed into the computer is compressed, encoded, saved to the hard drive while simultaneously full analysis of the video is performed.
Many advanced features are incorporated, including supporting full color analysis, automatic adaptation to non‐uniform or changing environment, IR lighting, automated handling of light/dark areas, variable speed playback of specific video segment for specific detected behavior, etc.
Complete Turn‐key systems including all necessary Hardware and Software are available. Custom design of your environment to facilitate analysis, including lighting condition setup, IR/red light setup, cage enclosures, video integration, and video‐feed to computer is also available.
SeizureScan is a specialized product for the automation of seizure behavior detection of rodents in a home cage. SeizureScan analyzes video from a side view (essential for body part detection) and outputs various occurrences of seizures in the animal based on the Racine scale.
This automated method for analysis of epileptic seizures in real‐time or from lengthy continuous digitized video has been achieved using state‐of‐the‐art digital video analysis technologies based on the semiology of the seizures. SeizureScan has an easy‐to‐use interface that allows a user to quickly input the required data and begin the analysis. Once the analysis has been started, the user need not be present. Upon completion, the system gives a detailed output with various detected seizures and some statistics.
The latest version of SeizureScan has the ability to operate in one of two modes: Short‐Term/Acute Mode or Long‐term/Chronic Mode. In the Short‐Term/Acute mode, typical of a PTZ test, the animal is monitored for a short duration, say, 30 min or so. During this time, the progress of seizure activity from normal behavior (P0) to Behavior Arrest (P1), to Twitches (P2), to Forelimb Clonus (P3), to Generalized Clonic Seizures (P4), to Jumpy/Bouncy Seizures (P5), to Tonic Extension (P6) are analyzed. In the Long‐Term Chronic mode, where seizures can be analyzed over extended periods of time, SeizureScan detects seizures of 3 types that are classified using the Racine scale – P3, P4 and P5 class seizures, with P3 seizures being relatively mild seizures to P5 seizures being the most violent.
Validation studies with mice in the Short‐Term mode have shown high correlation with human scoring. Automation of this test now makes unconstrained high‐throughput screening possible for the first time! Validation studies in rats under Chronic Mode have shown that both sensitivity and specificity have been optimized to approximately 80% levels simultaneously. Sensitivity levels can be increased by adjusting a few detection parameters in such a manner that false negatives are substantially minimized, while tolerating a slight increase in false positives, which can easily be filtered out using built‐in manual‐review based filtering tools.
SeizureScan can also be integrated with an EEG system so that SeizureScan displays the real‐time synchronized EEG data on the SeizureScan interface. The EEG data scrolls automatically as the video advances during analysis. Clicking on a point in EEG will immediately locate corresponding video frame, vice versa. Since the video signals and the EEG signals are correlated in time, cues from one can be applied to the other to achieve synergy between the two channels of data.
This will be a powerful tool for scientists as the ability to screen animals for seizures automatically can be a tremendous resource. SeizureScan can be combined with HomeCageScan into a single system thereby allowing detection of not only seizure activity, but all the other behaviors that HomeCageScan can detect. This allows the user to determine what the animal was doing when it is not having a seizure.
Moreover, with multiple cameras hooked up to SeizureScan systems, the number of cages analyzed simultaneously can be increased further.
Many advanced features are incorporated, including supporting full color analysis, automatic adapting of changing environment, automated handling of day/night switches, variable speed playback of specific video segment for specific detected behavior, etc. Complete Turn‐key systems including all necessary Hardware and Software are available. Custom design of your environment to facilitate analysis, including lighting condition setup, IR/red light setup, cage enclosures, video integration, and video‐feed to computer is also available.
This product is protected by US Patent(s) # 6,678,413; 7,068,842; 7,209,588; 7,643,655
TopScan Lite is a modified version of TopScan so researchers can obtain a high quality product with the lowest price available in the market today. Examples of applications include Open Field, Novel Object Recognition, Maze Analysis, Morris Water Maze, Barnes Maze, Place Preference, etc. Using a four-point tracking method (Nose, Fore Body center, Body Center – Center of Mass, and Tail Base), TopScanLite provides accurate “In Area” and “Motion” tracking events that provide research data ranging from location, distance traveled, velocity, motion/immobility, etc. The software package provides great value as well as highly adaptable and powerful research capabilities of automating and scoring a large range of behavioral assays!
TopScan Lite allows automated analysis of locomotor activity. The system has the flexibility that the animal can be placed in an arena with or without bedding. TopScan Lite outputs statistics about locomotor behavior such as total distance traveled, average speed, etc. It also allows the user to divide the cage or arena into zones of any shape as they want and it will output zone‐specific statistics including zone entry and exit statistics, average speed within each zone, length of stay in each zone, etc. For more detailed Locomotion behavior analysis including obtaining information such as Orientation to points, etc., purchase of LocoScan is recommended.
TopScan Lite can be used in Novel Object Recognition experiments as a rough tool for detecting the presence of the animal “near” an object. For accurate detection of Sniffing behavior based on the nose of the animal touching the object, purchase of ObjectScan is recommended.
TopScan Lite can automate the analysis of experiments conducted on all types of mazes including Elevated Plus Maze, Zero Maze, Radial Arm Maze, Y‐ or T‐ Maze, etc. It can detect traditional parameters like entries into each arm/area and time spent in each arm/area as events, etc. For detailed analysis of mazes including events such as body‐across‐two‐zones, stretch‐and‐attend and head‐dipping, the purchase of MazeScan is recommended.
TopScan Lite allows analysis of the popular Morris Water Maze experiment. The video is taken of the water maze experiment from the top, and it will analyze this video to give a variety of significant results, including latency time and distance traveled etc. For detailed analysis including, behaviors such as turning, orientation to a point, etc., purchase of our WaterMazeScan product is recommended.
TopScan Lite can be applied in Place Preference test, Barnes Maze, and many other experiments where the animal needs to be tracked. It has several advanced features, including ability to automatically review each event that is detected by playing back that specific video segment, and displays how the software finds the animal and tracks it accurately in a separate window so that user can monitor the performance of the system.
All components of TopScan Lite can be applied to achieve high throughput screening as well. System architecture for high throughput screening has been designed that involves analysis of up to 32 arenas on a system, depending on how large the arenas are. Such high levels of throughput are possible as we can integrate multiple cameras together into the TopScan Lite system. The High‐Throughput product option is necessary to analyze more than a single arena simultaneously. The Realtime Option is necessary to perform realtime analysis where the live video feed into the computer is compressed, encoded, saved to the hard drive while simultaneously full analysis of the video is performed.
Many advanced features are incorporated, including supporting full color analysis, automatic adaptation to non‐uniform or changing environment, automated handling of light/dark areas, variable speed playback of specific video segment for specific detected behavior, etc.
Complete Turn‐key systems including all necessary Hardware and Software are available. Custom design of your environment to facilitate analysis, including lighting condition setup, IR/red light setup, cage enclosures, video integration, and video‐feed to computer is also available.
All of these capabilities at a price that just cannot be beat1 Options such as High‐Throughput and Realtime Options are only $1000 each. If all you need is basic tracking functionality, why look anywhere else! We offer the best tracking technology and features at the best price anywhere!
This product is protected by US Patent(s) #6,678,413; 7,068,842; 7,817,824
TreadScan is a component of our NeurodegenScan Suite and meets the needs for gait analysis of animals. Gait analysis allows highly sensitive, noninvasive detection and evaluation of many pathophysiological conditions, such as those occurring in Spinal Cord Injury, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, arthritis, pain, neuromuscular and skeletal muscle diseases.
TreadScan system takes video of animal (mouse or rat) running on a transparent belt treadmill as input. The video of the ventral view (underside view) of the animal is obtained using a high‐speed digital camera and each video capture can be 20 seconds (or even more when used with specialized fast hard drive architecture) giving a multitude of stride samples in just one trial. The video essentially captures the foot prints of the animal as they walk/run on the treadmill. TreadScan software can work with videos taken from any treadmill that allows the capture of its footprints on any video capturing hardware system with a high‐speed camera.
TreadScan can reliably analyze the video, and determine various characteristic parameters that are related to the pathophysiological conditions. These parameters include the stance time (paw on the belt), the swing time (paw in the air), total stride time, stride length, foot contact area size, foot pressure (measured using color intensity levels), body‐foot spacing distance (distances between body and feet), foot spacing distances (distance between various feet), running speed, stride frequencies, foot coupling or coordination measures (in‐phase or out‐of‐phase gait patterns of feet), and Foot Print Analysis related measures such as foot print placement rotation angle with body and toe spread factors (splay). Also calculated are brake time (early part of stance until the paw reaches maximum contact) and propel time (latter portion of stance when the paw is propelling the body. TreadScan also provides Whole Body Movement Information, including information about Body Rotation during walking, Body Shifting (lateral and longitudinal whole body movements) during walking. Body Support information including measures for fraction of time when zero, one, two, three or all four feet are on floor while walking are also provided.
TreadScan outputs the detailed results of these parameters from analysis into Microsoft Excel files and gives statistical results to meet requirements in the research. Advanced functionalities such as batch mode analysis, group export, direct analysis of AVI captured files, and post‐hoc conversion to compressed MPEG videos to save disk‐space are available. A sample screenshot of the TreadScan software is shown below. The stride data is shown on the right for each foot individually. The results are updated as the analysis takes place.
Now released TreadScan version 3 includes several new features – a) Ability to measure and display Pressure of a foot during contact with floor; b) Ability to automatically detect and delete outliers as well as portions of the video that are not worthy of analysis, and c) ability to view and export the Ink‐Pad like image that shows the placement positions of the various feet.
This product is protected by US Patent # 8,514,236
DrugEffectScan is an optional module for TopScan that is a powerful and effective tool for detecting commonly occurring behaviors of animals under drug effects: head waving and darting.
DrugEffectScan provides several measures for the detection of head waving including: number of times the head turns to the left, number of times the head turns to the right, and frequency of head waving. DrugEffectScan also detects how many darting behaviors occur during testing, and gives measurements of speed and distance for each darting behavior.
DrugEffectScan also, has the capability to detect in-place motion. Animals under drug effects perform micro-movements while remaining stationary in the same place. These minor movements have been shown to be an important behavioral indicator of drug effects in animal models. Detection of these events allows for a more comprehensive analysis of behavior.
DrugEffectScan is bundled with the LocoScan module of TopScan to provide general locomotor information including: zone visits, crossovers, speed, motion, immobility, elongation, and shape.
Optional features for integration include: Circling, Flat‐back approach, Grooming and Thigmotaxis. The addition of these optional behaviors allow for the analysis of a broader range of stereotypic behaviors.
DrugEffectScan can be applied to achieve high throughput screening as well. System architecture for high throughput screening has been designed that involves analysis of up to 32 arenas on a system, depending on how large the arenas are. Such high levels of throughput are possible as we can integrate multiple cameras together into the TopScan system. The High‐Throughput product option is necessary to analyze more than a single arena simultaneously. The Real time Option is necessary to perform real time analysis where the live video feed into the computer is compressed, encoded, saved to the hard drive while simultaneously full analysis of the video is performed.
Many advanced features are incorporated, including supporting full color analysis, automatic adaptation to non‐uniform or changing environment, automated handling of light/dark areas, variable speed playback of specific video segment for specific detected behavior, etc.
Complete Turn‐key systems including all necessary Hardware and Software are available. Custom design of your environment to facilitate analysis, including lighting condition setup, IR/red light setup, cage enclosures, video integration, and video‐feed to computer is also available
PrimateScan is a software analysis tool similar to HomeCageScan, designed for the automated detection of Primate behaviors in a transparent cage. Our premise for developing PrimateScan is that behavioral measures are more viable when data is collected when test subjects are unconstrained by experimenter manipulation. Thus, automated high throughput analysis of behaviors in the primate home cage would be a powerful tool for assessing multiple behavioral measures in primate models of various types of disorders or disease.
Automation of analysis would allow quantification of all behaviors associated with the circadian rhythm over extended periods of time. The analysis of organized patterns of behavior over time are useful in detecting genetic changes, drug efficacy,phenotypic profiles or changes in animal models.
The automated system is also able to detect abnormal behaviors that do not normally occur and present the investigator with video clips of such behavior. Abnormalities may also result from a deviation from the regular circadian rhythm of normal behaviors. That is, detection of novel abnormal behaviors is achieved by detecting segments of behavior that do not fit the standard profile for a particular primate type whereas detection of abnormal amounts of a normal behavior is detected by comparing the statistical properties of the standard profile.
PrimateScan is a perfect fit for longitudinal studies where several animals are studied and tested over long periods. For example, PrimateScan can be used in disease progression studies by analyzing several animals one day every week for several weeks. The behavior profile for each week can then be compared with other weeks’ data to see what behaviors are altered over the course of the study.
The techniques for automation of the categorization and quantification of all home‐cage behaviors throughout the daily cycle will be a powerful tool for detecting phenotypic effects of gene manipulations or drug administration in primates. These techniques have been applied to achieve high throughput drug screening as well. System architecture for high throughput screening has been designed that involves analysis of 4 cages on a system. Moreover, with multiple cameras hooked up to PrimateScan systems, the number of cages analyzed simultaneously can be increased further. Up to 4 animals can be analyzed simultaneously with the High‐Throughput Option. Realtime Option provides the ability to perform analysis in realtime while the video is compressed and saved to the hard‐drive of the computer.
Many advanced features are incorporated, including supporting full color analysis, automatic adapting of changing environment, automated handling of day/night switches, variable speed playback of specific video segment for specific detected behavior, etc.
Complete Turn‐key systems including all necessary Hardware and Software are available. Custom design of your environment to facilitate analysis, including lighting condition setup, IR/red light setup, cage enclosures, video integration, and video‐feed to computer is also available.
This product is protected by US Patent(s) #6,678,413; 7,068,842; 7,209,588
Analysis of Locomotor behavior in rodents is a common and important measure in preclinical research studies. Locomotion experiments are used to test the levels of activity of the animals, rhythms of their movements including randomness, inclination to stay close to the walls (thigmotaxis) or move closer to the center of the arena etc. Often drugs are used to manipulate behavior and effects are studied using multiple animals and environments(i.e. Open Field)simultaneously.
LocoScan fills this need and provides automated analysis of locomotor activity. The system has the flexibility that the mouse can be placed in a cage with or without bedding. LocoScan outputs detailed statistics about locomotor behavior such as total distance traveled, average speed, turning angle, and elongation. It also allows the user to divide the cage or arena into zones of any shape as he/she wants and LocoScan will output zone‐specific statistics including zone entry and exit statistics, average speed and turning angle within each zone, length of stay in each zone, etc. In addition, it makes differentiation between InPlaceMovement (time staying in same place while doing minor movements) and Locomotion (time moving around), which is a feature demanded by many scientists. It also gives the detailed locomotion parameters for each behavior bout, including “Locomotion” and “InPlaceMovement.”
LocoScan provides 2‐dimensional information about the animal, such as its shape and elongation information and turning angle information. LocoScan also allows the user to define points and lines and obtain measures or detect events based distances from these points/lines. If purchased along with MazeScan which allows reliable identification of animal’s major body parts such as nose, forelimbs, and tail base, LocoScan can be very powerful as the user has the capability to detect the presence of any body part anywhere.
Other Events LocoScan provides include Speed (when does an animal move faster than 10 cm/s?), Shape (when does the animal stay curled up?), Elongation (when is the animal stretched out?), Rearing (based on shape), Motion Level, Immobility (When is the animal still?), and Cross Over. The system has capabilities to handle special cases, including the ability to measure locomotion of a rat in a small cage, where the rat body takes up a large percentage of the space and moves slowly with great constraints, making it previously extremely difficult to calculate locomotion. Our novel design gives accurate measurements of rat’s locomotion.
LocoScan can be applied to achieve high throughput screening as well. System architecture for high throughput screening has been designed that provides analysis of up to 32 arenas on a system (as shown in figure below), depending on how large the arenas are. Such high levels of throughput are possible as we can integrate multiple cameras together into the TopScan system. The High‐Throughput product option is necessary to analyze more than a single arena simultaneously. The Realtime Option is necessary to perform realtime analysis where the live video feed into the computer is compressed, encoded, saved to the hard drive while simultaneously full analysis of the video is performed.
Many advanced features are incorporated, including supporting full color analysis, automatic adaptation to non‐uniform or changing environment, automated handling of light/dark areas, variable speed playback of specific video segment for specific detected behavior, etc.
Complete Turn‐key systems including all necessary Hardware and Software are available. Custom design of your environment to facilitate analysis, including lighting condition setup, IR/red light setup, cage enclosures, video integration, and video‐feed to computer is also available.