Voloh Benjamin, Eisenreich Benjamin R, Maisson David J-N, Ebitz R Becket, Park Hyun Soo, Hayden Benjamin Y, Zimmermann Jan
Department of Neuroscience, Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, Center for Neuroengineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Oxf Open Neurosci. 2023;2. doi: 10.1093/oons/kvad006. Epub 2023 Jun 20.
Primatologists, psychologists and neuroscientists have long hypothesized that primate behavior is highly structured. However, delineating that structure has been impossible due to the difficulties of precision behavioral tracking. Here we analyzed a dataset consisting of continuous measures of the 3D position of two male rhesus macaques () performing three different tasks in a large unrestrained environment over several hours. Using an unsupervised embedding approach on the tracked joints, we identified commonly repeated pose patterns, which we call postures. We found that macaques' behavior is characterized by 49 distinct postures, lasting an average of 0.6 seconds. We found evidence that behavior is hierarchically organized, in that transitions between poses tend to occur within larger modules, which correspond to identifiable actions; these actions are further organized hierarchically. Our behavioral decomposition allows us to identify universal (cross-individual and cross-task) and unique (specific to each individual and task) principles of behavior. These results demonstrate the hierarchical nature of primate behavior, provide a method for the automated ethogramming of primate behavior, and provide important constraints on neural models of pose generation.
长期以来，灵长类动物学家、心理学家和神经科学家一直假设灵长类动物的行为具有高度的结构性。然而，由于精确行为追踪存在困难，描绘这种结构一直是不可能的。在这里，我们分析了一个数据集，该数据集由两只雄性恒河猴在一个大型无约束环境中执行三项不同任务数小时的三维位置的连续测量组成。通过对跟踪关节使用无监督嵌入方法，我们识别出了常见的重复姿势模式，我们将其称为姿势。我们发现猕猴的行为具有49种不同的姿势，平均持续0.6秒。我们发现有证据表明行为是分层组织的，因为姿势之间的转换往往发生在更大的模块内，这些模块对应于可识别的动作；这些动作进一步分层组织。我们的行为分解使我们能够识别行为的通用（跨个体和跨任务）和独特（特定于每个个体和任务）原则。这些结果证明了灵长类动物行为的分层性质，提供了一种自动绘制灵长类动物行为图谱的方法，并对姿势生成的神经模型提供了重要限制。
