Department of Biomedical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana, United States of America.
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana, United States of America.
Sci Rep. 2016 Aug 9;6:31286. doi: 10.1038/srep31286.
Stretch-attend posture (SAP) occurs during risk assessment and is prevalent in common rodent behavioral tests. Measuring this behavior can enhance behavioral tests. For example, stretch-attend posture is a more sensitive measure of the effects of anxiolytics than traditional spatiotemporal indices. However, quantifying stretch-attend posture using human observers is time consuming, somewhat subjective, and prone to errors. We have developed MATLAB-based software, MATSAP, which is a quick, consistent, and open source program that provides objective automated analysis of stretch-attend posture in rodent behavioral experiments. Unlike human observers, MATSAP is not susceptible to fatigue or subjectivity. We assessed MATSAP performance with videos of male Swiss mice moving in an open field box and in an elevated plus maze. MATSAP reliably detected stretch-attend posture on par with human observers. This freely-available program can be broadly used by biologists and psychologists to accelerate neurological, pharmacological, and behavioral studies.
伸展姿势（SAP）出现在风险评估期间，在常见的啮齿动物行为测试中很普遍。测量这种行为可以增强行为测试。例如，伸展姿势是一种比传统时空指数更敏感的测量抗焦虑药物效果的方法。然而，使用人类观察者来量化伸展姿势既耗时、主观，又容易出错。我们开发了基于 MATLAB 的软件 MATSAP，它是一个快速、一致且开源的程序，可对啮齿动物行为实验中的伸展姿势进行客观的自动分析。与人类观察者不同，MATSAP不易疲劳，也不易受到主观因素的影响。我们使用雄性瑞士小鼠在开放场箱和高架十字迷宫中移动的视频来评估 MATSAP 的性能。MATSAP 可靠地检测到了伸展姿势，与人类观察者的结果相当。这个免费提供的程序可以被生物学家和心理学家广泛用于加速神经学、药理学和行为学研究。
