A Real-Time Interactive System for Studying Confrontational Pursuit Behavior in Rodents

Predatory pursuit behavior involves a series of important physiological processes, such as locomotion, learning, and decision-making that are critical to the success of an animal in capturing prey. However, there are few methods and systems for studying predatory pursuit behavior in the laboratory, especially in mice, a commonly used mammalian model. The main factors limiting this research are the uncontrollability of live prey (e.g., crickets) and the challenge of harmonizing experimental standards. The goal of this study was to develop an interactive platform to detect and quantify predatory pursuit behaviors in mice on a robotic bait. The platform uses computer vision to monitor the relative positions of the mouse and robotic bait in real time to program the motion patterns of the robotic bait, and the interactive two-dimensional sliders magnetically control the movement of the robotic bait to achieve a closed-loop system. The robotic bait is able to evade approaching hungry mice in real-time, and its escape speed and direction can be adjusted to mimic the predatory pursuit process in different contexts. After a short period of unsupervised training (less than two weeks), the mice were able to perform the predation task with a relatively high efficiency (less than 15 s). By recording kinematic parameters such as speed and trajectories of the robotic bait and the mice, we were able to quantify the pursuit process under different conditions. In conclusion, this method provides a new paradigm for the study of predatory behavior and can be used to further investigate the dynamics and neural mechanisms of predatory pursuit behavior.