Instrumentation for monitoring animal movements

Behavioural experiments often require continuous monitoring of the responses that animals make in different situations and in response to various stimuli. Formerly, recording visual observations of animals followed by the manual post hoc analysis of the data was the most commonly employed approach and has the advantage of being non-invasive. However, manual data extraction can be very time-consuming and introduces a risk of bias in identifying salient responses. Although techniques have been developed for specific applications to automate the analysis of behaviours, including some commercial solutions, many are not always adequate for the particular situation or sufficiently flexible to measure the desired movement. We have developed and implemented a relatively low cost system for video recording and reliably extracting data characterizing animal´s kinetic responses. This instrumentation has been successfully utilized in our investigations of pigeon head movements by enabling us to record and compare behavioural responses to different types of stimuli.