Opportunity to Analyze Laboratory Mice Behavior by Tracking Systems based on UHF RFID Technology: pros and cons

The behavioral analysis of animals is fundamental for the biomedical disciplines as it allows to study specific pathologies reproduced in laboratory and/or to evaluate the efficacy of new pharmacological therapies before experimenting them on human beings. Nevertheless, the gathering of data related to the animal behavior is not immediate: lab animals are similar to each other, making it impossible to use procedures based on computer vision as well as on human operators. On the contrary, the use of systems based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in Ultra High Frequency (UHF), represents a winning approach to face these challenges. In this work, pros and cons of a RFID-based lab animal tracking system composed of specifically designed antenna system as well as software infrastructure have been evaluated through a campaign aimed at evaluating the behavior analysis of laboratory mice ha having a near field UHF RFID tag implanted. This work, on the basis of the campaign results, highlights main pros and cons of using RFID in comparison with a video monitoring system.