Hi I used a video tracking software. You will need a camera (very cheap these days) and the software. I used ethovision. It will give you parameters such as distance moved, speed, rearing, time in zones, social interaction and a lot more. I hope that helps

Thanks Cristian! I have no experience with these behavioral measures but I my understanding was it was hard to measure reliably rearing with a camera only....do feel that with ethovision the measures are OK or do you need a lot of manual input in the analysis? M. 

Hi my email is [email protected]

You can contact me here if you want thanks

I used Ethovision video tracking and manual scoring for rearing - I think beam break systems are more accurate for measuring rearing, but they usually lack spatial resolution on other measures, so it depends what you are most interested in!

In my rearing analysis, I used stopwatch+ (http://www.cbn-atl.org/research/stopwatch.shtml) to enable differentiation from wall-supported and free-standing rearing. This is manual, but you can watch the videos on high speed (x4), and it's perfectly do-able. The other advantage of using a video tracking system is that you can reanalyse the videos using different parameters, whereas with beam break techniques, you only have the system output, which could make it more difficult to detect and confirm effects due to environmental interference.

If you'd be interested, I can send some of my data on rearing - part of my PhD thesis looked at characterising naive rat behaviour in the open field, and I looked at frequency, duration, and latency to first/last rear, comparing between the two forms mentioned above.

From the options you've received quotes for I can recommend the Photobeam Activity System from San Diego Instruments. Beam-break technology has a much higher throughput than video tracking software (as one PC can run at least 12 chambers simultaneously), and removes any chance of manual scoring error. Video tracking such as Ethovision or SMART has a lot of advantages in other behavioural tests, but for pure locomotor activity and vertical rearing, I strongly favour beam breaking.

If you do decide to use any automated tracking software it is a good idea to properly backlight the apparatus.

See publication by Bailoo, Bohlen, Wahlsten, 2010

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165027010000749 

I've used the photobeam apparatus and thought it did a great job--I was able to track multiple chambers simultaneously.  I've also added a camera to the photobeam setup but didn't like the fact that I had to adjust the lighting in the room (I was trying to maintain a reversed light/dark cycle)

Thank you all for your answers!!

I decided to go for a the photobeams because I want like to make my life easier and essentially I am only interested in gross changes in locomotions and to be able to measure rearing.

Philip: I decided to go for the Harvard option because it was half the price of the san diego equivalent...will see if it was a wise choice!

Hi Marcello! I'm also a regular user of ethovision, but I think maybe licences are quite expensive... Good luck!

Following paper might be good guide

Article Behavioural phenotypes in the cuprizone model of central ner...