Benefits
Participants learned how to:

• Track a variety of animals on their own or with others in a variety of situations using an automated video tracking system.
• Run experiments more reliably, and therefore save time and effort at the analysis stage.
• Implement more advanced experimental designs with the same equipment, to enhance the research.

Features

• General set-up of behavioral lab experiments for analysis with an automated video tracking system. Tips for basic set-up problems - for example, lighting a water maze, avoiding disturbance by ultrasound of a computer monitor, indirect lighting.
• Advanced lighting for automated video tracking set-ups: direct and indirect light, low light conditions (1-5 lux), lighting various mazes (half enclosed platform, backlight maze for rats, etc.).
• Video tracking with IR lighting, IR filters and IR transparent equipment.
• Tracking insects by backlighting - for example, aphids on leaves, filmed from below.
• Color marking materials and techniques for rodents and other animals.
• Using the event-logging interface to record automated events as well as tracking animals.

Audience

• Experienced video-tracking users that want to perfect their set-up, and expand the range of experiments using video tracking.
• Experienced video-tracking users with specific questions to the instructors.
• New users of tracking systems wanting to learn about how to get most from the systems.
• Possible users, wanting to see what the systems are capable of.

Instructor resume

• Bill Budenberg obtained a Ph.D. in insect behavior from Imperial College, London, and he then worked for 3 years on pheromones and kairomones of banana weevil in Nairobi. For the last 8 years he has been director of Tracksys Ltd, supplying software and equipment for the analysis of behavior predominantly to the UK and Ireland. During this time he has developed expertise in the use of filming in the IR for video tracking, and developed a range of mazes to give very reliable tracking of transgenic and mixed colour animals.
• Niels Cadée has a PhD in animal ecology from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. For the last 2.5 years he has worked as a documentation specialist and trainer at Noldus Information Technology, developing manuals and online help systems. He has given many EthoVision training courses in laboratories all over Europe, working on widely different animal models and study designs.
• Dimitri Gerebtzoff does research on various aspects of cognition and its modulation by antipsychotics. He works mostly on rodents but has been involved in some projects on human ethology, particularly autism and schizophrenia. Over the last 3 years, he has set up several tests with EthoVision.

Sign up
To sign up for this tutorial, please send an email to Niels Cadee. Feel free to ask questions in advance, thus allowing the instructor to tailor the content of the tutorial to the interest of the participants.