Tracking of Individual Mice in a Social Setting Using Video Tracking Combined with RFID tags

Rodents used in laboratory research are housed in small groups in cages where they eat, sleep, drink, groom and interact socially. Procedures and behavioural tests to analyse an animal's capabilities and fitness are often laborious, slow, subjective and unnatural. Experimenter influence is a particularly difficult issue; even if the data capture itself can be automated, or controlled, the presence of the scientist during the experiment may have an influence [e.g. 1]. These challenges are not new but with increasing interest in longitudinal studies, for example the analysis of effects of aging or the impact of neurodegenerative diseases the ability to accurately and consistently measure behaviour over prolonged times becomes extremely important [2].

We designed, implemented and validated a system for collecting longitudinal data on individual animals who are, importantly, still housed within a normal social group. A range of homecage analysis systems already exists but none quite meet the constraints we had: Most of the existing systems are focussed on single animals or use essentially bespoke environments. Instead we sought to develop a system that was completely compatible with modern high-density IVC caging systems and that could slot seamlessly into high-throughput facilities [3].