A PC-based system for long-term monitoring of animal activity

This paper describes a PC-based animal locomotor and sound activities synchronous analysis and recording system. In the former, using video recording and image analysis techniques, the geometric locations of an animal in a cage and its bodily displacement areas between consecutive time in two-dimensions were detected. Tremendous data reduction rate has also been obtained (512×512:4), which facilitates our PC computer (Pentium 100) to perform a long-term (up to several weeks according to the space of hard disk) and on-line (1 sec) analysis and storage of the animal locomotor signals. In the latter, the sounds generated by the animal were recorded at the cage over a consecutive 1-sec time and its root mean square (RMS) value was used to index the sound level. Our preliminary study showed that such a combination of monitoring and recording system gives a faithful and comprehensive representation of animal activity