INFO-OPTICAL SYSTEM FOR THE MONITORING OF THE MOVEMENT OF LABORATORY RODENTS

The present invention consists of an info-optical system designed to automatically monitor the movements, mainly, of laboratory rodents (mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, etc). This information will make it possible to analyze their movement or positioning, which in many cases will lead to specific conclusions about their behavior during physical training sessions, or during specific experiments carried out in rooms specially designed for it. The system tracks and records the trajectory of the movement of the laboratory animal by capturing and storing the successive Cartesian coordinates of its position obtained in periods of time of 5 ms. The processing of the series of coordinates and the instants of time relative to those positions, allows the determination of parameters of interest, such as: frequency of the positions in different areas of the enclosure, total distance traveled, angles described, instantaneous speeds, average speeds , maximum speeds, idle time, and other parameters derived from these. This system can be applied in different experimental designs that include behavioral tests of a different nature carried out with laboratory rodents (specific mazes, T-Maze, Morris water Maze, Open-Field, etc.); or to assess the behavior of rodents, mainly in terms of the spatial position during the execution of physical activity (voluntary wheels, motorized wheels, on treadmills or in water tanks).