Rodent Locomotion Monitoring Equipment

Abstract

This paper presents circuit design, implementation, and test result of a prototype of a locomotion monitoring equipment. Rodent Locomotion can be continuously recorded both in horizontal and vertical axes. Distance, time, number of rearing, rate and pattern of travelling are stored and processed by a microcomputer, The instrument composes of a transparent plexiglass box (40x40x40 cm³) , electronic circuits for generating pulses, infrared transmitter/receiver, interfacing circuit, and microcomputer. Two sets of 16 pair infrared transmitter/receiver are placed at the height of 3 and 15 cm from the box floor. The spacing of the individual sensor is 2.35 cm

Well-defined movements of known position, distance, velocity, and time produced by objects of different sizes were used to test the tracking effectiveness of the prototype. The displayed parameters showed no diviation from the true values. The efficiency of tracking was then estimated in complex movements made by rats receiving either normal saline, diazepam, caffeine, and theophylline, The parameters from 4 groups of 7 rats were compared to those from observation through video tapes which was simultaneously recorded.

The prototype has accuracy in presenting time, position, and movement pattern. A 1.67% greater (p<0.05) in distance of movement was observed which resulting in 1.67% faster velocity of mobement. This was because the prototype is capable of detecting more details than human observation.