Locomotor Activity Monitoring System in Rodents

Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation of a locomotor activity monitoring system in rodents. The system was developed on an electronic platform based on open code hardware and software (Arduino Nano), which includes additional electronic circuits such as real time clock (RTC) to record date and time and a flash memory (microSD) for storage of records. In order to facilitate both installation and operation of the system, it was designed in a modular way. Each autonomous monitoring system (Arduino Nano + RTC + microSD) includes a sensor signal conditioning electronic interface with the capacity to operate up to ten breeding cages. In the design of the monitoring system an energy backup is considered through an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). The resulting data sets are grouped into periods of 5 or 10 minutes and stored in a microSD memory, for further analysis and presentation. The records are presented in the form of a locomotor activity profile and also in the form of single and double plotted actogram. The contribution of this system is in an increase in the capacity to acquire experimental data, without interfering with other experiments in the same workspace due to its modularity and a reduction in electrical energy costs.