behavior recognition technology of the next generation
TreadScan
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
• Complete Software Solution
• Analyzes 640x480 at 100 frames per sec
• Detects feet in animals with almost similar coat color like Agouti and White mice!
• Works with rodents of all colors/sizes
• Stores video in MPEG with high‐compression for optimal use of disk space
• Provides a Comprehensive set of gait measures
• Export Stance Graph (a timing diagram of the foot stances and the foot contact size information) and the Ink‐Pad image showing the foot placement positions
• Ability to automatically flag outliers for further review and discard unusable portions of video
Results
• Objective Gait Analysis Results
• Ability to Review collected strides before exporting
• Automatic highlighting of sample outliers for error detection and correction
• Automatic Export to MS Excel
• Complete Experiment Database Management
• Full‐list of all samples collected per animal, as well as, summary data for each set of measures output clearly to a separate sheet in an Excel file.
• Group Export available that allows multiple animals’ data to be exported to a single Excel sheet allowing easy Group or sub‐group analysis
Requirements & Production Options
Requirements
• Windows‐based PC
• Intel available high‐speed Processor
• 2 GB RAM
• High‐speed area scan digital camera
• Large HDD space for storing video data
• Good environment lighting conditions
Production Options
ExerGait treadmill supports mouse gait analysis only
ExerGait XL treadmill support gait analysis for both mouse and rat