New automatic method for tracking rats in a pool for medication studies

Manuel G. Forero; Natalia C. Hernandez; Cristian M. Morera; Laura E. Baquedano; Luis A. Aguilar

doi:10.1117/12.2528799

6 September 2019 New automatic method for tracking rats in a pool for medication studies

Manuel G. Forero, Natalia C. Hernandez, Cristian M. Morera, Laura E. Baquedano, Luis A. Aguilar

Proceedings Volume 11137, Applications of Digital Image Processing XLII; 111372B (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2528799
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2019, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The study of drugs to combat neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer and Parkinson, is frequently done in animal models such as rats. To evaluate the effectiveness of drugs and administered medication, videos of rats in a swimming pool are recorded and their behavior is analyzed. Although, there are several commercial and free access computer programs that allow recording the movement of the rat, they do not do it in an automatic way, given that the identification of some reference points such as the position and ratio of the pool is done by hand. In addition, it is required to identify the frame when the rat is released. This makes the study of these videos long, tedious and not reproducible. Therefore, in this paper, a new technique for the evaluation of the Morris test is introduced. It automatically detects and localises the pool and the rat notably reducing the time consumed in the evaluation. For the pool identification a segmentation method, based on the projection of the video frames, is done, eliminating the rat, while conserving the shape of the pool. Then, the Hough transformation is used to recognize the position and radius of the pool. The frame when the rat is released is found by using mathematical morphology techniques. The software was developed as a plugin of the free access software imageJ. The results obtained were validated, allowing to verify the quality of the proposed method.

Citation Download Citation

Manuel G. Forero, Natalia C. Hernandez, Cristian M. Morera, Laura E. Baquedano, and Luis A. Aguilar "New automatic method for tracking rats in a pool for medication studies", Proc. SPIE 11137, Applications of Digital Image Processing XLII, 111372B (6 September 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2528799

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available

Members: $17.00

Non-members: $21.00 ADD TO CART

PROCEEDINGS
6 PAGES

DOWNLOAD PAPER SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

GET CITATION

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Get copyright permission Get copyright permission on Copyright Marketplace

KEYWORDS

Animal model studies

Automatic tracking

Software development

Alzheimer's disease

Cognitive modeling

Software

Video processing

Show All Keywords

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years