Sphynx: An Automated Behavioral Analysis Tool for Neuronal Selectivity Identification

A detailed analysis of animal behavior is a crucial step in understanding how the activity of brain structures and individual cells mediate animal behavior. Neurons can be selective to both the internal states of the animal and features of the environment. However, it is challenging to divide the continuum of animal behavior into discrete behavioral acts. We present Sphynx, a software tool for extracting a wide range of behavioral variables from video recordings of animal behavior and correlating these acts with environmental features. We demonstrate that detailed behavioral analysis using Sphynx reveals selectivity of neurons.