CinePlex Basic Behavior Option

CinePlex® Basic Behavior is one of three advanced application-specific options to enhance the CinePlex Behavioral Research System. CinePlex Basic Behavior enables the further breakdown of arenas defined in CinePlex Tracking into various logically-interrelated zones, the generation of simple and complex digital events in response to activity within the zones, and the automatic calculation of real-time statistics.

**CinePlex Studio 3.11.0 now offers jitter elimination and more!**

Basic Behavior Option

Description

CinePlex Basic Behavior is an optional program within CinePlex Studio. It builds on tracking data captured by CinePlex Tracking and transforms it into quantifiable behavior necessary for social interaction studies, behavioral training paradigms, and gait analysis to name a few of the possible applications. The CinePlex Tracking option introduced the ability to define arenas and capture timing and positioning data. From there, CinePlex Basic Behavior enables researchers to further breakdown those arenas into various logically-interrelated zones, generate simple and complex digital events in response to activity within the zones, and automatically calculate real-time statistics.

Zones can be designated as dynamic – centered on a tracked object – or static, such as space an animal should traverse to receive an award. Much like arenas, zones can be drawn over the video image guided by shape outline tools or free-handed. Also like arenas, zones can be combined using logical operations. Zones can be further ordered into various sequences. The careful definition and arrangement of zones establishes the foundation for triggering events that convert movement and activity into quantifiable data able to be analyzed.

An event can be created when a tracked object’s locomotion satisfies a logical test causing a true result. An event can be as simple as when an animal enters or leaves a certain zone, or when it reaches a particular speed, or even when it looks at a specific target. Events are visually displayed on the monitor, saved within the data file and can be used to generate output pulses or voltage levels to control or signal other equipment. Events may also be complex and consist of predefined sequences incorporating logical operations, such as generating a digital output when an object enters a zone at a certain speed.

Events establish milestones from which real-time statistics are calculated for behavioral parameters including event time, trajectory length, vectors, angles, speeds, and head direction.

If also working with OmniPlex or MAP Systems online, tracking coordinates are available to online user-written programs via C/C++ and MATLAB® software development kits (SDKs). The SDKs permit further automation of the data manipulation, reducing human error and time required to manually analyze the data.

CinePlex Basic Behavior is a specialized program within CinePlex Studio and is not sold separately. A special license permits access to the advanced features.

You may also be interested CinePlex 3D, the other specialized application-specific option available within CinePlex Studio. Beyond the CinePlex System – if your freely behaving animal experiments involve neural data acquisition – other products such as our PlexBright® Optogenetic Stimulation System, commutators and specialized headstage cables with ultra-fine wire and/or protective wraps may be of value to you.

To observe the CinePlex System in use during a freely behaving rat experiment, we invite you to view the methods section within the publication “Automated Visual Cognitive Tasks for Recording Neural Activity Using a Floor Projection Maze” authored by a team in Rebecca Burwell’s Behavioral Neuroscience of Memory and Attention Lab at Brown University and published in the Journal of Visualized Experimentation (JoVE) on February 20, 2014. The study presented uses CinePlex Studio with the CinePlex Tracking and CinePlex Basic Behavior options – integrated with the OmniPlex Neural Data Acquisition System for synchronized neural recording.

You are invited to contact a Plexon Sales Engineer for more information and to assist you in determining how to best configure the CinePlex System suite of programs to most effectively support your research.

Note: Image is a courtesy of the Rebecca Burwell Lab, Brown University

Technical Specs

CinePlex® Basic Behavior performs advanced – yet optional – functionality within CinePlex Studio that builds on CinePlex Tracking functionality. The table below outlines selected information regarding CinePlex Basic Behavior. Click here to learn more about CinePlex Tracking, or CinePlex Software in general.

Features Specifications and Options Remarks
Coordinate dimensions Two-dimensional (2D)
Arena delineation Arenas can be further sub-divided into zones. Zones can be drawn using standard shape tools (circle, oval, etc.) or freehand. Logical operations (AND, NOT, etc.) allow combining multiple zones to produce complex zones.
Zone types Dynamic or static
Zone sequences Supported Permits the ordering of activity through several zones. Many sequences can be defined.
Events The execution of a logical test performed by the object being tracked and generating a true result. Events may be defined as the positive result of a single action or a series of actions (combination event). Many events can be defined.
Event output Visual display, saved to a file and digital pulses or voltage levels Programmable digital output lines which can be associated with any behavioral event can be used to control or signal other equipment.
Digital outputs Up to 24
Statistical parameters calculated Duration, trajectory length, vectors, angles, speeds, and head direction.
Static visualizations Arenas and static zones
Dynamic visualizations Dynamic zones, trajectories, connectors, angles, and more
Relationship to other CinePlex Studio application-specific options Requires CinePlex Tracking to operate.
Licensing Requires the purchase of a CinePlex System, plus a license key for CinePlex Tracking and CinePlex Basic Behavior. All upgrades within a software version are free of charge and do not need a modification to the license key. Upgrades to the next version do require an updated key with expanded privileges.

Any questions? Ask a Plexon Sales Engineer. We are here to help you determine if the CinePlex System is the best tool to launch you from experiment to publication the fastest and easiest.

Resources

Manuals/User Guides

Post date December 2015

Post Date September 2018

Post date October 2014. This user guide contains updated functionality for the use of CinePlex integrated with OmniPlex only.

Legacy Manuals/User Guides

Post date February 2010. Comprehensive CinePlex User Guide through version 3.0.

Post date February 2008.

Installation Packages/Upgrades

Post date May 2014

Post date August 2014

Guides and How To Papers

Change Log

Technical Specs and Data Sheets

Research Articles with Video

Jacobson, Tara K., Jonathan W. Ho, Brendon W. Kent, Fang-Chi Yang, and Rebecca D. Burwell. “Automated Visual Cognitive Tasks for Recording Neural Activity Using a Floor Projection Maze.” JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) 84 (2014): e51316-e51316.

Publications