HighlightsAutomated assessment of mouse home-cage behaviour is robust and reliable.Analysis over multiple light/dark cycles improves ability to classify behaviours.Combined RFID and video analysis enables home-cage analysis in group housed animals.

Central nervous system disorders such as autism as well as the range of neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's disease are commonly investigated using genetically altered mouse models. The current system for characterizing these mice usually involves removing the animals from their home-cage environment and placing them into novel environments where they undergo a battery of tests measuring a range of behavioral and physical phenotypes. These tests are often only conducted for short periods of times in social isolation. However, human manifestations of such disorders are often characterized by multiple phenotypes, presented over long periods of time and leading to significant social impacts. Here, we have developed a system which will allow the automated monitoring of individual mice housed socially in the cage they are reared and housed in, within established social groups and over long periods of time. We demonstrate that the system accurately reports individual locomotor behavior within the group and that the measurements taken can provide unique insights into the effects of genetic background on individual and group behavior not previously recognized.

Measuring the activity and temperature of rats is commonly required in biomedical research. Conventional approaches necessitate single housing, which affects their behavior and wellbeing. We have used a subcutaneous radiofrequency identification (RFID) transponder to measure ambulatory activity and temperature of individual rats when group-housed in conventional, rack-mounted home cages. The transponder location and temperature is detected by a matrix of antennae in a baseplate under the cage. An infrared high-definition camera acquires side-view video of the cage and also enables automated detection of vertical activity. Validation studies showed that baseplate-derived ambulatory activity correlated well with manual tracking and with side-view whole-cage video pixel movement. This technology enables individual behavioral and temperature data to be acquired continuously from group-housed rats in their familiar, home cage environment. We demonstrate its ability to reliably detect naturally occurring behavioral effects, extending beyond the capabilities of routine observational tests and conventional monitoring equipment. It has numerous potential applications including safety pharmacology, toxicology, circadian biology, disease models and drug discovery.

A novel learning framework is proposed for anomalous behaviour detection in a video surveillance scenario, so that a classifier which distinguishes between normal and anomalous behaviour patterns can be incrementally trained with the assistance of a human operator. We consider the behaviour of pedestrians in terms of motion trajectories, and parametrise these trajectories using the control points of approximating cubic spline curves. This paper demonstrates an incremental semi-supervised one-class learning procedure in which unlabelled trajectories are combined with occasional examples of normal behaviour labelled by a human operator. This procedure is found to be effective on two different datasets, indicating that a human operator could potentially train the system to detect anomalous behaviour by providing only occasional interventions (a small percentage of the total number of observations).

SummaryAltered phosphodiesterase (PDE)-cyclic AMP (cAMP) activity is frequently associated with anxiety disorders, but current therapies act by reducing neuronal excitability rather than targeting PDE-cAMP-mediated signaling pathways. Here, we report the novel repositioning of anti-cancer MEK inhibitors as anxiolytics in a zebrafish model of anxiety-like behaviors. PDE inhibitors or activators of adenylate cyclase cause behaviors consistent with anxiety in larvae and adult zebrafish. Small-molecule screening identifies MEK inhibitors as potent suppressors of cAMP anxiety behaviors in both larvae and adult zebrafish, while causing no anxiolytic behavioral effects on their own. The mechanism underlying cAMP-induced anxiety is via crosstalk to activation of the RAS-MAPK signaling pathway. We propose that targeting crosstalk signaling pathways can be an effective strategy for mental health disorders, and advance the repositioning of MEK inhibitors as behavior stabilizers in the context of increased cAMP.