Video processing for rat behavior analysis

A procedure for laboratory rats tracking using image and video processing techniques is proposed. A plastic box split into three chambers by two walls is the analyzed scene. Each experiment starts with a sequence during at least eight minutes with a free rat placed in the middle area with the closed doors to the box marginal locations. The proposed method determines for each sequence frame the location of the rat head. For the second part of the experiment, with open doors, the procedure will be completed later on with the computation of free rat overall motion parameters and identification of specific rat behaviors.