Automatic analysis of treadmill running to estimate times to fatigue and exhaustion in rodents.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

The determination of fatigue and exhaustion in experimental animals is complicated by the subjective nature of the measurement. Typically, it requires an observer to watch exercising animals, e.g. rats running on the treadmill, and to identify the time of the event. In this study, we hypothesized that automatic analysis of the time-averaged position of a rat on a treadmill could be an objective way for estimating times to fatigue and exhaustion. To test this hypothesis, we compared these times measured by a human observer to the results of an automated video tracking system.

Methods

Rats, previously familiarized to running on the treadmill, ran at a fixed speed with zero incline, until exhaustion. The experiments were performed at either room temperature (24 °C)

SUBMITTER: Zaretsky DV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6037152 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature