Fig. 1. (a) Overall flowchart (a) and sample image (b) showing the procedures to develop a novel automatic method detecting scratching. Experimental movies recoded following an intradermal injection of an itch-causing compound into the nape of the neck of a mouse were registered and binarized for the frame-to-frame analysis. Following a process of noise reduction, four characteristic changes accompanying scratching, changes in body size as well as changes in pixels, body size and body position by frame, were extracted from the movies. These features were utilized to determine scratching from other homecage behaviors by a two-step decision tree-inducing algorithm during two rounds of training procedures to build a novel detection method.
© Exp Neurobiol
