I am looking for suggestions for a system for observing maternal behavior in rats within their home cage. Ideally, this would involve relatively inexpensive webcams (or something similar) that could be attached to the top and/or side of cage to record behaviors. I am looking for a product that can record either continuously and store files on a disc or cloud (so we can go back and sample the time(s) we are interested in) or one where you can set up the time(s) and it will auto record (even one where we could log in remotely and start/stop recording). We want to be as non-influential as possible to their behaviors so being offsite is key!
Are there any products and/or systems you would recommend? We're trying to keep this on a budget, but need a way to get videos in the most efficient way without colony disruption (something like a security cam?).
Thanks in advance for your help/suggestions!
Hi Jennifer,
If you set up cages on racks, with the side of the cage facing out, you can use any decent HD camera on a tripod to record 6 cages at a time. This will not work on racks with automatic water systems. Going in to turn on the camera will not be disruptive for more than a few minutes, if at all, or you could get cameras that have timers. These cages are going to be in the observation room for all of lactation, without any moving of the cages for the observations or sharing the room with other investigators? The challenge with doing undisturbed observations is tremendous variability in lactation patterns, and therefore maternal care, between litters. You either need to watch many hours of undisturbed video (similar to the Meaney work), or use a short separation to standardize the lactation pattern a bit. A comparison with maternal-pup separation would be a cardiovascular stress test. You could record days of unstressed data from a patient and not see the major pathology that is present during a stress test. For maternal rodents, you probably don't want to introduce a stressor, but animals are handled during cage changes, and a dam leaving the litter for 30-60 minutes is common and does not have the adverse effects of a 3 hr. or longer separation. Trying to use a observation in between observation large durations of undisturbed data and the use of pup separation makes it difficult to see differences. A related issue is recording hours of video and assessing only behavioral frequency through scan sampling, not behavioral duration. Increasing frequency is not always associated with increased duration, and assuming this can lead to inaccurate conclusions. For example, a dam moving her nest might produce increased frequencies of maternal behaviors which result in decreased durations of grooming and nursing. A major challenge with maternal behavior is that you can't use automated assessment for things like pup grooming and nursing, so doing undisturbed recordings can result in a need to observe many hours of video even in a moderately sized study. We have compared results from undisturbed and pup separation maternal care in our own facility, and the durations are very similar with 30-60 minute observations.
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