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System and method for automatically discovering, characterizing, classifying and semi-automatically labeling animal behavior and quantitative phenotyping of behaviors in animals

  • US 9,317,743 B2
  • Filed: 11/10/2014
  • Issued: 04/19/2016
  • Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2012
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method for automatically discovering, characterizing and classifying the behavior of an animal in an experimental area, comprising:

  • (a) using a 3D depth camera to obtain a video stream having a plurality of images of the experimental area with the animal in the experimental area, the images having both area and depth information;

    (b) removing background noise from each of the plurality of images to generate processed images having light and dark areas;

    (c) determining contours of the light areas in the plurality of processed images;

    (d) extracting parameters from both area and depth image information within the contours to form a plurality of multi-dimensional data points, each data point representing the posture of the animal at a specific time and identifying the animal'"'"'s head and tail based on a derivative of the contour curvature;

    (e) clustering the data points at each specific time to output a set of clusters that are segmented form each other so that each cluster represents an animal behavior;

    (f) assigning each cluster a label that represents an animal behavior; and

    (g) outputting a visual representation of the set of clusters and corresponding labels.

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