ACTIVITY MONITOR - Vanderbilt Kennedy Center

MED ASSOCIATES INC. ACTIVITY MONITOR
Rotational Behavior Calculations
With the MED Rotational Analysis Setup, the user can select from three pre-defined
settings to analyze for large, medium, and small clockwise and counterclockwise
rotations. We have also provided user-definable quadrant, radius and onset/backtrack
tolerance settings to provide flexibility for subject/treatment specific analyses.
The preset values analyze for small (Figure 4-10), medium (Figure 4-9), and large
rotations, up to the entire diameter of the chamber (Figure 4-8). This ability to classify
rotations based upon their size (actually maximum radius) was initiated in light of current
research examining rotations as wide or pivotal. Remember, the OFA system tracks the
center of the animal, therefore the rotations considered are ambulatory circles, the path
of which is defined by the radius, number of segments, and segment limits (forward and
reverse). Bear in mind that rotations around the animal’s center (i.e. rotations for
chasing its tail) cannot be detected by this system.
Figure 4-8 - Large Circles Values to Analyze Clockwise and Counterclockwise Rotations.
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