Inertial Sensors

Small inertial sensors attached to the body of rodents or other species permit the assessment of changes in the repertoire of behavior, the frequency of certain behaviors, the transitions between behaviors, and to extract sequences of spontaneous behaviors. We have developed sensors that are capable of 9-axis measurements from: accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer. Both wired and wireless motion sensors are available that are small small enough to be used on mice. Base-stations transmit information between sensor and a computer; wireless receivers and docking stations for charging pair with the wireless sensors.

REFERENCES:

Venkatraman S, Jin X, Costa RM, Carmena JM (2010). Investigating neural correlates of behavior in freely behaving rodents using inertial sensors. Journal Neurophysiology.104(1):569-75. doi: 10.1152/jn.00121.2010.

Klaus A*, Martins GJM*, Paixão VB, Zhou P, Paninski L, Costa RM (2017). The spatiotemporal organization of the striatum encodes action space. Neuron, 95(5):1171-80. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.08.015.

CONTACT: Filipe Carvalho - filipe.carvalho@neuro.fchampalimaud.org

Unsupervised behavior classification

We developed an unsupervised behavior classification algorithm based on continuous video (or gyroscope) and acceleration data using the following features: (i) total body acceleration (BA), which captures periods of movement versus rest, (ii) gravitational acceleration along the anterio-posterior axis (GAap), which captures changes in posture, e.g., during rearing, and (iii) cumulative video (or gyroscope) rotation angle (φ) to measure changes in body and head orientation. A behavioral map can be obtained by mapping all the segments into 2 dimensions using t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) which embeds high-dimensional behavioral data into a low-dimension representation that captures the important dataset features.

REFERENCES: Klaus A*, Martins GJM*, Paixão VB, Zhou P, Paninski L, Costa RM (2017). The spatiotemporal organization of the striatum encodes action space. Neuron, 95(5):1171-80. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.08.015.

CONTACT: Vitor Paixão - vitor.paixao@neuro.fchampalimaud.org

Fiber photometry

We have developed a time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC)–based fiber optics system to measure the intensity, emission spectra and lifetime of fluorescent biosensors expressed in deep brain structures in freely moving mice. This can also be achieved through a simpler system* to measure bulk fluorescence imaging using implanted fibre optics coupled to a detection system like a photomultiplier (PMT).

REFERENCES:

Cui, G*, Jun SB*, Jin, X, Pham, MD, Vogel SS, Lovinger DM & Costa RM. (2013) Concurrent activation of striatal direct- and indirect-pathways during action initiation. Nature. 494(7436):238-42. doi: 10.1038/nature11846.

Cui G, Jun SB, Jin X, Pham MD, Vogel SS, Lovinger DM, Costa RM (2014). Deep brain optical measurement of cell type-specific neural activity in mice performing an operant task. Nature Protocols, 9(6):1213-28. doi: 10.1038/nprot.2014.080.

*Tecuapetla F, Matias S, Dugue GP, Mainen ZF, Costa RM (2014). Balanced activity in basal ganglia projection pathways is critical for contraversive movements. Nature Communications, 5:4315. doi: 10.1038/ncomms5315. *contact Sara Matias - sara.matias@neuro.fchampalimaud.org

CONTACT: Parts can be obtained from Becker & Hickl GmbH: www.becker-hickl.com or contact  Guohong Cui - cui-cuig@niehs.nih.gov