1 Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa
Vol. 33, pp. 1-4 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0102.3772e3322
e3322
C iê ncias do C ompor tamento
X -PloR at: A S oftware for Scor ing A nimal B ehavior in E nclosed S paces
J ulian Tejada1
Universidade F ederal de Sergipe K hallil Taverna C haim Universidade de Sã o Paulo
Silvio Morato Universidade de Sã o Paulo
A B S T R A C T - T he present technical note introduces the X -PloR at, a software for the scoring of animal location, displacement, and other behavioral properties, in enclosed spaces. T he X -PloR at off ers a variety of data reports and can be used for training students in behavioral observation and in validating other kinds of scoring procedures.
K eywor ds: software for behavioral scoring, animal behavior, behavioral tests
X -PloR at: S oftware par a o R egistro do C ompor tamento em E spaços C onfi
nados
R E S U M O - A presente nota técnica apresenta o X -PloR at, um software que permite o registro da localizaçã o, deslocamento e outras propriedades do comportamento animal em espaços confi nados. O X -PloR at oferece uma grande variedade de relatórios e pode ajudar no treinamento de estudantes em observaçã o do comportamento e também na validaçã o de outros tipos de registros.
Palavr as-chave: software de registro comportamental, comportamento animal, testes comportamentais
1 A ddress for correspondence: C idade Univiversitária Prof. J osé A loísio de C ampos, A v. Marechal R ondon, s/n, J d. R osa E lze, Sã o C ristóvã o, SE , B rasil. C E P: 49100-000. E -mail: jtejada@ ups.br,
B ehavior scoring is one of the most important procedures
in studies involving enclosed animals. Two broadly used
apparatuses for evaluating anxiety-like behaviors i n rodents
are the round or rectangular open fi eld (OF ) and the elevated
pl us maz e ( E PM ; H andl ey & M i thani , 1984; Pawl ak ,
K arrenbauer, S chneider, & Ho, 2012; Walf & F rye, 2007; for
a review, see C arobrez & B ertoglio, 2005). U sed by many
researchers for a variety of purposes, the E PM consists of a
platform with two arms surrounded by walls and two open
arms intersected perpendicularly at the center resulting in a
plus-shaped delimited space, which is elevated 50 cm from
the fl oor. U sually, the animal behavior is recorded with a
video camera and scoring is done afterwards by watching
the video and assigning categories for specifi c behaviors.
Such manual scoring requires considerable training before
achieving reliable results, besides being time and energy
consuming. T herefore, overcoming these hindrances would
be extremely helpful.
T here are commercially available softwares that allow
automati c recordi ng of behav i or, some of whi ch are
connected to special apparatuses. T hese, however, are usually
expensive and often depend on specifi c equipment. T here
are also non-commercial softwares designed to assist in the
scoring of behaviors, one of which is the E PMscore ( Patel,
Seasholtz, & Patel, 2006).
A nother non-commercial software, the X -PloR at, was
developed in the laboratory of one of the present authors
( S M ) to assi st i n OF and E PM scori ng, and has been
distributed as freeware to fellow researchers in B razil and
abroad (X -PloR at, version 2005 1.1.0, available for download
at http://sites.ff clrp.usp.br/scotty/) . T he present technical
note ai ms at i ntroducing the X -Pl oR at for the scientifi c
community.
T he X -PloR at allows the user to virtual ly divide the
apparatus’ fl oor into as many squares ( or rectangles) as
needed to meet research purposes, and to record both ( 1)
the displacements from one section to another and ( 2) the
occurrence of target behaviors, (e.g., vertical exploration,
head dipping, rearing, stretch-attend postures and grooming,
among others) in one or more specifi c sections. T he timing
of these two types of events is also recorded, and the exact
moment of occurrence can be retri eved and entered i n
spreadsheets for analysis.
In order to perform the scoring, the user fi rst fi lms a
session with a video camera placed above the center of the
apparatus. A grid designed in a transparent plastic sheet
is placed on the T V or monitor that will be used for video
playback. W hile playing the video, the E PM fl oor image on
the screen (in the perspective of the video camera) is observed
through the grid, designed according to the desired number
of squares. F or example, in the E PM, the fl oor image can
be divided into fi ve 10-cm squares per arm plus a central
square. T he software exhibits a representation of the divided
maze according to the divisions in the transparent sheet. T he
user then watches the video in a T V or monitor adjacent to
the computer monitor with the software, and records the
displacements from one square to another by pressing the
arrow keys indicating the direction of the displacement. T he
square indicating the animal’s position turns red, contrasting
with the remaining white squares. In addition to the sequence
of displacements and location of the rat, the software also
be of interest to the researcher. F or this feature, the researcher
previously defi nes a behavior and designates an alphanumeric
key to it. A t video playback, the behavior is recorded by
pressing the specifi ed key to indicate the beginning of the
behavior and releasing the key to indicate the end of the
behavior.
A fter the scoring session, data reports may provide ( 1)
the frequency of entries into each square and (2) the time
spent in each square. In addition, it may also provide ( 3) the
frequency, ( 4) location and ( 5) time spent performing other
recorded behaviors. Other more sophisticated reports are also
available, such as a minute-by-minute or square-by-square
analyses, or even a combination of both.
D ue to the good acceptance of the X -PloR at by many
B raz i l i an researchers ( C uri o et al ., 2009; F i l guei ras,
C arv al ho- Netto, & E stani sl au, 2014; M eneses, L opes,
V elarde, & B oaventura, 2011; R ico, Penagos-Gil, C astañ eda,
& C orredor, 2016; S erafi m, K i shi , C anto- de-S ouza, &
Mattioli, 2010, 2013; Soares, M elo, et al., 2013; S oares,
Ol i v ei ra, et al ., 2013) , i t i s v i tal l y i mportant to mak e
available a formal presentation of the software’s technical
characteristics.
T echnical C har acter istics
E xper iment S etup
T he X -Pl oR at software i s a W i ndows™ appl ication,
written in Object Pascal programming language and it runs
in almost any Windows version, and with Wine, in the L inux
system. It requires 2 MB of hard disk space and 64 MB of
R A M memory.
B ef ore beg i nni ng to rec ord the i nf ormati on, the
experimental conditions must be defi ned. T he user has to
enter defi ning characteristics, such as the type and size of
the apparatus, session duration, etc., into the specifi c fi elds
of the software interface. S hould the software be used to
analyze video recordings from settings outside labs ( such
as classrooms or day care centers, clinical offi ces, sport
courts or even bigger animal quarters, l ike corrals) , the
same procedures must be followed (i.e., placing a camera
high in the center of the setting, using a gridded transparent
screen on the T V monitor, etc.) . T he software comes with a
group of preprogrammed mazes, such as for the E PM and
the OF ( see examples in F igure 1), with diff erent number of
subdivisions. F or the E PM, the software comes with three
diff erent number of subdivision: 3, 5 and 6 by arm ( F igure
1 A -C ). F or the OF there are two subdivisions by default: 16
and 36 ( F igure 1 F -G) .
T he X - Pl o- R at al so al l ows customi zi ng the gri d to
any square or rectangular area. F or example, it is possible
to anal y ze sessi ons ( or reanal y ze the same sessi on for
confi rmation purposes, etc.) using two or three divisions in
each arm. Many researchers prefer to analyze this maze by
dividing the arms into two sections (instead of fi ve): one
composed by the two squares in the extremities and another
composed by the remaining three squares next to the central
square.
F igure 1. D efault maze confi gurations of the X -PloR at. A -C , elevated plus maze with each arm divided into 3 ( A ), 5 (B ) and 6 sections (C ). D and E , elevated I mazes with each arm divided into 3 (D) and 5 (E ) sections. F inally, an open fi eld divided into an area with 4 by 4 (F ) and 6 by 6 ( G) squares with 16 and 36 squares, respectively.
Once the experimental apparatus is defi ned, the next
step i s to speci fy key s from the key board that wi l l be
used to represent a specifi c behavior. X -PloR at allows the
confi guration of any alphabetic key for recording a specifi c
behavior. T hus, it is possible to specify up to 26 diff erent
behaviors by session. A lso, it is possible to record nested
behaviors, which is when one behavior is followed by another
( while maintaining the fi rst) and then returns to the fi rst. F or
instance, the animal might perform the behavior ‘ head out’,
during which it performs the ‘ head dipping’, then ‘ head
dipping’ ends, and fi nally the ‘ head out’ ends. T he researcher
will press and hold the key assigned to ‘ head out’, then press
and hold the key assigned to ‘ head dipping’ for the duration
of this behavior, release it when ‘ head dipping’ ends ( all this
while holding the ‘ head out’ key) , and then release the ‘ head
out’ key when the episode ends. F inally, the last step is to
defi ne a start position, which is the spot the animal will be
placed in at the beginning of the session. In the case of the
E PM, this is also the spot in which the animal will be placed
if it falls out of the maze.
R ecor ding
A s mentioned above, the X -PloR at helps with the manual
recording of behaviors while watching the video of a session
and displacing the red mark from one square to the next by
pressing the arrow keys according to the direction of the
displacement ( see a screenshot of the X -PloR at running an
E PM recording in F igure 2). S imultaneously, it is possible
to record other behaviors by pressing and holding previously
3 Psic.: Teor. e Pesq., B rasília, Vol. 33 pp. 1-4
X -PloRat
F igure 2. Screenshot of the X -PloR at recording an E PM experiment.
Once the recording is fi nished, the software saves the data
in a text fi le into the Installation folder. T his fi le contains the
recorded information in an intuitive table, which can be used
to generate various types of reports.
A nalysis
T he software’s anal ysis module al lows the recorded
information to be retrieved, either grouped by square, by time
or both. T he two main options available are W hole session
and Minute by minute, which, as the names imply, are related
to the duration of the session. In the W hole session option, a
report of all the events that occurred in the whole session is
generated. On the other hand, the Minute by minute option
generates reports informing the events that happened in each
minute of the session.
Under each of the above options, the software can produce
even more refi ned reports by choosing: C ompact, C ompact
by arm and B y squares. T he fi rst two are reports specifi c for
the E PM. T he C ompact retrieval option aggregates the results
by open and closed arms. On the other hand, the C ompact by
arm option aggregates the results by each of the four arms
( e.g., the west closed arm, the east closed arm, the north
open arm and the south open arm) . F inally, the B y square
option arranges the events of the whole session by each of
the squares into which the maze is divided.
A ll the above options arrange the results in a .txt fi le
format table which can be readily processed by a spreadsheet
software. T he table contains the frequency and duration of
each behavior. T he analysis options also allow entering data
of several animals in the same fi le, facilitating the transfer
into statistical software.
F ur ther I mprovements
Over the years, users have requested the feature that would
allow the visualization of the video with an overlapped image
“mask” of the grid, making the animal localization in each
square easier. A lthough this is not presently an
out-of-the-box feature, with the advent of more sophisticated operating
systems with more powerful compositing window managers
( such as the D esktop W indow Manager for W indows or
C ompiz and K win for L inux), the implementation of this
feature could be possible. F or the time being, there are a
series of diff erent Windows applications that can be used to
change the opacity of the windows that could be used to add
a mask to the video image ( see www.ghostwindows.com) .
In some cases, especially when the E PM is used, it may be
necessary to rotate the image to fi t with the overlapping mask.
To do this, we suggest the use of a video player that allows
a 360 degree rotation, such as the V L C , an open-source
cross-platform video player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) .
B y combi ni ng sof tware that control s the opaci ty /
transparency of windows with software able to rotate and play
a video, it is possible to obtain the eff ect of superimposing the
X -PloR at grid to the video and record the behavior by moving
the red square over the actual image of the rat, improving the
accuracy of the records.
A nother limiting aspect of the X -PloR at is the use of a grid
( perpendicular lines) to defi ne the apparatus’ areas, making
its use impractical to record behaviors in circular OF or
radial mazes. However, the X -PloR at could be adapted to the
circular OF, which is mostly used in pharmacological studies,
if the round area is conceived as a square area in which the
animal is unable to explore the corners. In other words,
because the X -PloR at is a software for manual recording, it
may be adapted to other situations than those for which it was
planned. F or instance, in a situation in which displacement
is not of interest, it is possible to defi ne the whole area as
a unique square, and record the defi ned behaviors by using
the alphabetic keys.
R eferences
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Recebido em 21.03.2016 Primeira decisã o editorial em 01.12.2016 Versã o fi nal em 21.01.2017
