Tosini Gianluca
Neuroscience Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Methods Mol Biol. 2007;362:95-101. doi: 10.1007/978-1-59745-257-1_6.
Many of the behavioral parameters exhibited by an organism show daily fluctuations. These may persist under constant environmental conditions, demonstrating that they are governed by an endogenous (circadian) clock. The monitoring of locomotor activity in rodents is probably one of the most common methods to track this endogenous timing system. The analysis of locomotor activity rhythms can provide several parameters that may be used to describe the status of this endogenous clock. In the past few years several companies have developed hardware and software systems that allow the collection and the analysis of activity data using a personal computer.
生物体表现出的许多行为参数都呈现出每日的波动。这些波动在恒定的环境条件下可能会持续存在，这表明它们受内源性（昼夜节律）时钟的控制。监测啮齿动物的运动活动可能是追踪这种内源性计时系统最常用的方法之一。对运动活动节律的分析可以提供几个参数，这些参数可用于描述这个内源性时钟的状态。在过去几年里，几家公司开发了硬件和软件系统，允许使用个人计算机收集和分析活动数据。
