Mousecam

Arne Meyer and colleagues recently shared their design and implementation of a head-mounted camera system for capturing detailed behavior in freely moving mice.

Video monitoring of animals can give great insight to behaviors. Most video monitoring systems to collect precise behavioral data require fixed position cameras and stationary animals, which can limit observation of natural behaviors. To address this, Meyer et al. developed a system which combines a lightweight head-mounted camera and head-movement sensors to detect behaviors in mice. The system, built using commercially available and 3D printed parts, can be used to monitor a variety of subtle behaviors including eye position, whisking, and ear movements in unrestrained animals. Furthermore, this device can be mounted in combination with neural implants for recording brain activity.

This research tool was created by your colleagues. Please acknowledge the Principal Investigator, cite the article in which the tool was described, and include an RRID in the Materials and Methods of your future publications. Project portal RRID:SCR_021422; Software RRID:SCR_021503