Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience Program, Tulane Neurophenotyping Platform, Tulane University Medical School, 1430 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA.
Behav Brain Res. 2011 Dec 1;225(2):426-31. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2011.07.052. Epub 2011 Aug 5.
Increasingly recognized in biological psychiatry, rodent self-grooming is a complex patterned behavior with evolutionarily conserved cephalo-caudal progression. While grooming is traditionally assessed by the latency, frequency and duration, its sequencing represents another important domain sensitive to various experimental manipulations. Such behavioral complexity requires novel objective approaches to quantify rodent grooming, in addition to time-consuming and highly variable manual observation. The present study combined modern behavior-recognition video-tracking technologies (CleverSys, Inc.) with manual observation to characterize in-depth spontaneous (novelty-induced) and artificial (water-induced) self-grooming in adult male C57BL/6J mice. We specifically focused on individual episodes of grooming (paw licking, head washing, body/leg washing, and tail/genital grooming), their duration and transitions between episodes. Overall, the frequency, duration and transitions detected using the automated approach significantly correlated with manual observations (R=0.51-0.7, p<0.001-0.05). This data validates the software-based detection of grooming, also indicating that behavior-recognition tools can be applied to characterize both the amount and sequential organization (patterning) of rodent grooming. Together with further refinement and methodological advancement, this approach will foster high-throughput neurophenotyping of grooming, with multiple applications in drug screening and testing of genetically modified animals.
在生物精神病学中，越来越多的人认识到，啮齿动物的自我梳理是一种具有进化保守性的头到尾的复杂模式行为。虽然梳理传统上是通过潜伏期、频率和持续时间来评估的，但它的顺序是另一个对各种实验操作敏感的重要领域。这种行为的复杂性需要新的客观方法来量化啮齿动物的梳理行为，除了耗时且高度可变的手动观察。本研究将现代行为识别视频跟踪技术（CleverSys，Inc.）与手动观察相结合，对成年雄性 C57BL/6J 小鼠的自发（新奇诱导）和人工（水诱导）自我梳理进行深入特征描述。我们特别关注梳理的个体事件（爪子舔舐、头部清洗、身体/腿部清洗和尾巴/生殖器清洗），以及它们的持续时间和事件之间的转换。总体而言，使用自动化方法检测到的频率、持续时间和转换与手动观察显著相关（R=0.51-0.7，p<0.001-0.05）。这些数据验证了基于软件的梳理检测，也表明行为识别工具可用于描述啮齿动物梳理的数量和顺序组织（模式）。随着进一步的改进和方法学的进步，这种方法将促进梳理的高通量神经表型分析，在药物筛选和遗传修饰动物的测试中有多种应用。
