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OPEN FIELD EXPERIMENT

Visualizing, recording and analyzing simple and complex behavior

This system enables you to perform automatically controlled behavioral experiments without the disadvantages of an artificial setup such as skinner boxes or running wheels.

An animal in the setup is observed with a video camera mounted above the experimental arena. The camera is connected to a computer running the VIEWER software. VIEWER analyzes the video, identifies the animal, determine its position (head, body and tail), draws its track and issues a comprehensive set of data.

Examples for tools and parameters you can add to the analysis in an open field:

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  • Manual event recording to produce an ethogram with self defined behaviors
  • Distance measurement to monitor the animals relativ position to a zone or object
  • Rearing behavior measurement
  • Rotation behavior measurement
  • Sound and ultrasound recording
  • Remote controled experiment start and stop
  • Simultaneous start of an uinlimited number of experiments
  • Live stream the animal’s position data to your local network during data acquisition

 

Basic Viewer result protocol

VelocityVelocity classesTrack lengthActivity
Distance to the wallZone crossingRated zone crossingAmubations
Area coveredZone visitsDuration in zonesZone visit latency
Freezing in zonesHeadbobs in zonesHeadstretches in zonesTailmoves in zones
Ambulation in zonesVelocity in zonesTrack length in zones