title: MouseMove: an open source program for semi-automated analysis of movement and cognitive testing in rodents.
abstract: The Open Field (OF) test is one of the most commonly used assays for assessing exploratory behaviour and generalised locomotor activity in rodents. Nevertheless, the vast majority of researchers still rely upon costly commercial systems for recording and analysing OF test results. Consequently, our aim was to design a freely available program for analysing the OF test and to provide an accompanying protocol that was minimally invasive, rapid, unbiased, without the need for specialised equipment or training. Similar to commercial systems, we show that our software-called MouseMove-accurately quantifies numerous parameters of movement including travel distance, speed, turning and curvature. To assess its utility, we used MouseMove to quantify unilateral locomotor deficits in mice following the filament-induced middle cerebral artery occlusion model of acute ischemic stroke. MouseMove can also monitor movement within defined regions-of-interest and is therefore suitable for analysing the Novel Object Recognition test and other field-related cognitive tests. To the best of our knowledge, MouseMove is the first open source software capable of providing qualitative and quantitative information on mouse locomotion in a semi-automated and high-throughput fashion, and hence MouseMove represents a sound alternative to commercial movement analysis systems.
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct (AMREP), Monash University, Melbourne, 3004.|Heart Research Institute, and Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Andre L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Samson
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct (AMREP), Monash University, Melbourne, 3004.|Heart Research Institute, and Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Lining
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ju
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Victoria.
authors.forename: Hyun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ah Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Victoria.
authors.forename: Shenpeng R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct (AMREP), Monash University, Melbourne, 3004.|Heart Research Institute, and Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Jessica A A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct (AMREP), Monash University, Melbourne, 3004.|Heart Research Institute, and Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Sharelle A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Sturgeon
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Victoria.
authors.forename: Christopher G
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Sobey
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct (AMREP), Monash University, Melbourne, 3004.|Heart Research Institute, and Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Shaun P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct (AMREP), Monash University, Melbourne, 3004.|Heart Research Institute, and Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Simone M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Schoenwaelder
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D020244:Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery; D008124:Locomotion / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D012984:Software; D020521:Stroke / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014741:Video Recording