The structure of arm and hand movements in a spontaneous and food rewarded on-line string-pulling task by the mouse

10String-pulling in rodents (rats and mice) is a task in which animals make hand-over-hand 11 movements to spontaneously reel in a string with or without a food reward attached to its end. The task 12 elicits bilateral skilled hand movements for which rodents require little training. The task is suitable for 13 phenotyping physiology and pathophysiology of sensorimotor integration in rodent models of 14 neurological and motor disorders. Because a rodent stands in the same location and its movements are 15 repetitive, the task lends itself to quantification of topographical and kinematic parameters for on-line 16 tactile tracking of the string, skilled hand movements for grasping, and rhythmical bilateral forearm 17 movements to advance the string. Here we describe a Matlab® based software with a graphical user 18 interface to assist researchers in analyzing the video record of string pulling. The software allows global 19 characterization of position and motion using optical flow estimation, descriptive statistics, principal 20 component, and independent component analyses as well as temporal measures of Fano factor, entropy, 21 and Higuchi fractal dimension. Based on image segmentation and object tracking heuristic algorithms, the 22 software also allows independent tracking of the body, ears, nose, and forehands for estimation of 23 kinematic parameters such as body length, body angle, head roll, head yaw, head pitch, movement paths 24 and speed of hand movement. The utility of the task and that of the software is presented by describing 25 mouse strain characteristics in string-pulling behavior of two strains of mice, C57BL/6 and Swiss Webster. 26Postural and skilled hand kinematic differences that characterize the strains highlight the utility of the task 27 and assessment methods for phenotypic and neurological analysis of healthy and rodent models of diseases 28 such as Parkinson's , Huntington's, Alzheimer's and other neurological and motor disorders. 29Significance statement: 30 Mouse models are used to investigate the physiology and pathophysiology of motor deficits 31 observed in human neurological conditions, for testing substances for therapeutic drug development, and 32 to investigate the role of neural systems and their genetic basis in the expression of behavior. Behavioral 33 tasks involving unconditioned and natural behavior can provide rich insights into motor performance in 34 animal models and analyses can be aided by the automated processing of video data for reliable 35 quantification and high throughput. 36Swiss Webster, C57BL/6 Brooks 2018). The objective of the present paper is to describe a state-of-the-art method for analyzing 69 mouse string-pulling. 70 We present a Matlab based toolbox to facilitate the analyses of video data of different strains of 71 intact or neurologically compromised mice engaged in string pulling. The toolbox features a graphical 72 user interface for video data analysis and follows the analysis framework with two major components, a 73 global assessmen...

show abstract

“…3.8G). Furthermore, as has been previously shown (Blackwell, Banovetz et al 2018), the nose 588 stays close to the string (Fig. 3.6D).…”

supporting

confidence: 85%

A toolbox for automated video analysis of rodents engaged in string-pulling: Phenotyping motor behavior of mice for sensory, whole-body and bimanual skilled hand function

Inayat

Singh

Ghasroddashti

et al. 2019

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Previous work shows that when participants reach without foviating a target, e.g, reaching when blindfolded (Karl et al, 2012) or into peripheral vision (Hall et al, 2014), they use an open hand to find the target and then use touch to guide their grasp. It is interesting that in the many studies of string-pulling in many animal species only one study featuring mice, who monitor string location with their vibrissae, has previously analyzed string-pulling sensory control (Blackwell et al, 2018a).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The utility of the task is in assessing perceptual, learning and motor ability and cognitive functions, such as reasoning, insight learning, and social learning. One string pulling paradigm requires pulling a vertically oriented string with up/down, alternating hand movements (Blackwell et al, 2017;Blackwell et al, 2018a;Blackwell et al, 2018b). When a participant adopts an erect posture, facing a camera, the task provides an unobstructed view the torso, arm, hand and finger from which the coordination of the movements of both hands can be gauged.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reach and Grasp Altered in Pantomime String-Pulling: A Test of the Action/Perception Theory in a Bilateral Reaching Task

Singh

Mandziak

Barr

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The action/perception theory of cortical organization is supported by the finding that pantomime hand movements of reaching and grasping are different from real movements. Frame-by-frame video analysis and MATLAB ® based tracking examined real/pantomime differences in a bilaterally movement, string-pulling, pulling down a rope with hand-over-hand movements.Sensory control of string-pulling varied from visually-direct when cued, visually-indirect when non cued and somatosensory controlled in the absence of vision. Cued grasping points were visual tracked and the pupils dilated in anticipation of the grasp, but when noncued, visual tracking and pupil responses were absent. In real string-pulling, grasping and releasing the string featured an arpeggio movement in which the fingers close and open in the sequence 5 through 1 (pinki first, thumb last); in pantomime, finger order was reversed, 1 through 5. In real stringpulling, the hand is fully opened and closed to grasp and release; in pantomime, hand opening was attenuated and featured a gradual opening centered on the grasp. The temporal structure of arm movements in real string-pulling featured up-arm movements that were faster than downarm movement. In pantomime, up/down movements had similar speed. In real string-pulling, up/down arm movements were direct and symmetric; in pantomime, they were more circular and asymmetric. That pantomime string-pulling featured less motoric and temporal complexity than real string-pulling is discussed in relation to the action/perception theory and in relation to the idea that pantomimed string-pulling may feature the substitution of gestures for real movement. Significant StatementMost laboratory studies investigating hand movements made by humans feature single hand movements, the current study presents a novel string-pulling task to study bimanual coordination of left and right hands in real and pantomime conditions. That pantomime string-pulling featured less motoric and temporal complexity than real string-pulling. These findings are relevant to the contemporary theory of action and perception that the dorsal stream (parietal cortex) is related to Actions and the ventral stream (temporal cortex) is related to Perception.

show abstract

“…The task has been used to assess cognitive function, motivation, brain and spinal cord injury and disease consequences and work/reward relations in animals and as a therapy and exercise tool in humans. If animals are presented with an overhanging string, they adopt a standing or sitting posture and use hand-over-hand movements to reel in the string ( Blackwell et al, 2018a ; Blackwell et al, 2018b ; Blackwell et al, 2018c ). Mice will even spontaneously reel in a string, but the behavior becomes more reliable when reinforced by a food reward attached to the string ( Laidre, 2008 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mice will even spontaneously reel in a string, but the behavior becomes more reliable when reinforced by a food reward attached to the string ( Laidre, 2008 ). The movement is an on-line act, guided by sensory information from snout vibrissea, and features four hand shaping movements for grasping and releasing the string, and five arm movements for retreiving and advancing the string that are similar in mice, rats, and humans ( Blackwell et al, 2018a ; Singh et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Matlab-based toolbox for characterizing behavior of rodents engaged in string-pulling

Inayat

Singh

Ghasroddashti

et al. 2020

eLife

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

String-pulling by rodents is a behavior in which animals make rhythmical body, head, and bilateral forearm as well as skilled hand movements to spontaneously reel in a string. Typical analysis includes kinematic assessment of hand movements done by manually annotating frames. Here, we describe a Matlab-based software that allows whole-body motion characterization using optical flow estimation, descriptive statistics, principal component, and independent component analyses as well as temporal measures of Fano factor, entropy, and Higuchi fractal dimension. Based on image-segmentation and heuristic algorithms for object tracking, the software also allows tracking of body, ears, nose, and forehands for estimation of kinematic parameters such as body length, body angle, head roll, head yaw, head pitch, and path and speed of hand movements. The utility of the task and software is demonstrated by characterizing postural and hand kinematic differences in string-pulling behavior of two strains of mice, C57BL/6 and Swiss Webster.

show abstract

The structure of arm and hand movements in a spontaneous and food rewarded on-line string-pulling task by the mouse

Cited by 32 publications

References 46 publications

A toolbox for automated video analysis of rodents engaged in string-pulling: Phenotyping motor behavior of mice for sensory, whole-body and bimanual skilled hand function

A toolbox for automated video analysis of rodents engaged in string-pulling: Phenotyping motor behavior of mice for sensory, whole-body and bimanual skilled hand function

Reach and Grasp Altered in Pantomime String-Pulling: A Test of the Action/Perception Theory in a Bilateral Reaching Task

A Matlab-based toolbox for characterizing behavior of rodents engaged in string-pulling

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About