Automated Home Cage for Monitoring Rats' Activity

The animals’ motor activity is one of the most important behavioral characteristics in many biological and pharmacological studies, which makes its correct quantitative assessment vital. However, the currently used in practice methods of measuring the rodents’ motor activity have such limitations as high costs, need for specialized cells usage, etc. To overcome these limitations, we present a cost-effective device for contactless registration of rodent’s motor activity in free behavior in a home cage. The principle of device’s operation is based on a bioradiolocation method that allows remotely monitoring of biological object vital signs determined by movements of the surface of the animal's body during activity, breathing and heartbeat. To classify rats’ motor activity episodes we proposed using two perpendicularly located relative to each other bioradars and a threshold algorithm, which showed a classification accuracy exceeding 99 % for experimental data collected for 5 rats.

I. INTRODUCTION

Experimental studies on animals are widely used to develop new medicines and estimate the influence of stress factors on living organisms. Animal models are potent tools if there are technical or ethical reasons not to conduct the relevant human studies. The locomotor activity of animals is an important parameter to be monitored in preclinical trials of medicines’ safety and effectiveness. It characterizes both musculoskeletal and neuropsychiatric states.