Group housing: A robotic system to track and interact with individuals

集体住房：跟踪个人并与个人互动的机器人系统

• 批准号: 8453870
• 负责人: DAVID A JOHNSON
• 金额: $ 14.15万
• 依托单位: PINNACLE TECHNOLOGY, INC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-04-01 至 2013-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8453870
• 关键词: Accounting; American; Animal Housing; Animals; Applications Grants; Automation; Beds; Behavior; Behavior monitoring; Behavioral; Biosensor; Chronic; Circadian Rhythms; Collaborations; Communities; Computer Assisted; Computer software; Data; Development; Device Designs; Devices; Drosophila genus; Environment; Facilities and Administrative Costs; Feedback; Food; Frequencies; Goals; Housing; Individual; Intervention; Lighting; Location; Measurement; Measures; Medical; Modeling; Monitor; Mus; Pennsylvania; Phase; Physiological; Physiology; Productivity; Radio; Rattus; Reader; Research; Research Personnel; Robotics; Rodent; Shock; Signal Transduction; Simulate; Sleep; Sleep Deprivation; Sleep Disorders; Sleep Fragmentations; Social isolation; Solutions; Stimulus; Stress; System; Technology; Testing; Universities; Water; Wireless Technology; animal care; arm; base; behavior influence; cohort; conditioned fear; coping; cost; design; experience; fly; improved; instrument; learned behavior; neurochemistry; novel; preference; prototype; public health relevance; research study; response; social; stressor; tool

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Individually housing animals, even for a short period, is known to have a negative influence on behavior, learning ability, and physiology. Group-housed rodents are better able to cope with stress through improved behavioral and physiological responses. Unfortunately, many experiments, including those designed to measure behavior, circadian activity, and/or sleep, necessitate single-housing due to technological restrictions. Automated delivery of an experimental intervention, such as gentle nudging to disturb sleep, is easily accomplished with single animals but is complicated in group-housing environments. The overall goal of this application is (1) to develop a novel cage enclosure designed for group housing of multiple, physically similar animals with long-term computer-aided video monitoring and radio frequency identification (RFID) to correctly and accurately identify and track individual animals within a group of three or more and (2) to automatically apply an intervention stimulus to one or more animals within the group. This system will employ a robotic arm situated directly above the cage, which, when tied to the video tracking module and RFID reader, can selectively apply an intervention stimulus (i.e., gentle nudging for sleep deprivation) to a specific animal based on state-specific feedback. The defined state may be classified using data collected via video tracking, wireless electroencephalograph (EEG) measurement, wireless biosensor measurement of specific neurochemicals, or other wireless physiological measurements. The system will be configurable so that the intervention stimulus may be applied to an individual animal based on physiological parameters defined by the researcher. In Phase I of this application, we will design and test a prototype enclosure for individual animal identification and stimulus in a small group of rats. Phase II will continue this development by testing and refining animal tracking and behavior involving multiple rats and mice, increasing the accuracy of video tracking, and increasing the types of intervention stimuli available to the researcher. At the completion of Phase II, we will have a complete, turn-key hardware and software solution that will be commercially available to the research community.

描述（由申请人提供）：已知单独圈养动物，即使是短时间，也会对行为、学习能力和生理产生负面影响。群体圈养的啮齿动物能够通过改善行为和生理反应更好地科普压力。不幸的是，许多实验，包括那些旨在测量行为，昼夜节律活动，和/或睡眠，由于技术限制，需要单一的住房。实验性干预的自动传递，例如轻轻地轻推以扰乱睡眠，很容易在单个动物身上完成，但在群体环境中很复杂。本申请的总体目标是（1）开发一种新型笼式围栏，其设计用于多个身体相似的动物的分组圈养，具有长期计算机辅助视频监控和射频识别（RFID），以正确和准确地识别和跟踪三个或更多个动物的组内的个体动物，以及（2）自动向组内的一个或多个动物施加干预刺激。该系统将采用位于笼架正上方的机器人臂，当该机器人臂与视频跟踪模块和RFID读取器连接时，可以选择性地施加干预刺激（即，用于睡眠剥夺的温和轻推）到基于状态特定反馈的特定动物。可以使用经由视频跟踪、无线脑电图（EEG）测量、特定神经化学物质的无线生物传感器测量或其他无线生理测量收集的数据来对所定义的状态进行分类。该系统将是可配置的，使得干预刺激可以基于由研究者定义的生理参数被施加到个体动物。在本申请的第一阶段，我们将设计和测试一个原型外壳，用于在一小群大鼠中识别和刺激单个动物。第二阶段将通过测试和改进涉及多只大鼠和小鼠的动物跟踪和行为，提高视频跟踪的准确性，并增加研究人员可用的干预刺激类型来继续这一发展。在第二阶段完成后，我们将有一个完整的，交钥匙的硬件和软件解决方案，将商业上提供给研究界。