ETHOLOOP

Accurate tracking and analysis of animal behavior is a crucial element of modern systems neuroscience. Under naturalistic situations, this can however be very challenging. The EthoLoop framework is designed to follow freely roaming animals in natural, three-dimensional (3D) environments, while providing behavior-triggered stimuli or rewards in a closed-loop manner... EthoLoop uses multiple high-speed infrared cameras to track the position of animals carrying miniature LEDs or retro-reflective markers in the dark. Each camera interacts with an independent GPU based microprocessor where the 2D position for each animal is calculated. All 2D coordinates are transmitted wirelessly to a central computing unit where the 3D position is reconstructed in real-time.