Finished! Looks like this project is out of data at the moment!
The images/videos used in this project show laboratory mice in their home cage environment.
Thank you very much for your fantastic work! We are taking a little break to look at the data generated so far and will be back very soon.
FAQ
Q. Where can I find the Tutorial and the Field Guide?
A. When you start to classify the behaviours, the Tutorial is on the right hand side of the task and the Field Guide is tucked along the right side bar.
Q. Why do the dots not follow the mice exactly?
A. The tracking technology relies on 18 antennae placed equally in a 3x6 rectangular grid across the floor that the animal home cage rests on. The RFiD microchips read by these antennae are implanted in the groin region of the mice (a similar process to microchipping a pet). As demonstrated by the video, when a mouse is within the range of an antenna, that particular antenna goes live (represented in the video as a coloured square).
The distance between these antennae is optimised for the highest accuracy to strongest signal ratio. This means the strongest signal is in area that covers that square. So that the signals don’t get scrambled, the baseplate only reads the microchips five times per second. But the video is recorded 5 times faster than the antennae can read the chips, so as the mice move from one square to the next in the video, the RFiD signal sometimes take a few seconds to catch up.
Q. Why do the ID tags not follow the mice precisely when a mouse is climbing?
A. The data from the ID tags is collected from RFiD antenna arrays in the base plate that makes up the floor of the rig. This has an optimal reading height, when the mice are away from the floor of the cage this can sometimes be too far away for the base plate to read accurately.
Q. I have classified the wrong mouse, what do I do?
A. Don't worry, if you have not yet submitted your classification, just click back and you can change it. If, however, you have submitted your classification then you can't go back, but it's okay. We show each video to a number of users this reduces the chances of mislabelling.
Q. What if a mouse is grooming itself and another mouse at the same time?
A. You can chose more than one answer to the question 'Who is it Grooming?'.
Q. Why is the project called ‘Rodent Little Brother’?
A. The name ‘Rodent Little Brother’ stems from the original CRACK IT challenge to develop an automated, minimally invasive system to assess the activity of mice in the home cages they are reared in. This in turn came from the project ‘Rodent Big Brother’ which was a similar project using rats. The name was of course an homage to George Orwell’s 1984. In this project we are observing the animals in order to assess their welfare needs and understand their behaviour within their social groups.
Q. I am seeing a number of other behaviours, why are you not classifying these?
A. The movement of mice can be picked up very accurately by the radio signal from the antennae in the baseplate, so we do not need to annotate these. Behaviours such as digging and foraging are important but we would need a lot more information on what the mice are interacting with. So while we are interested in these behaviours in the longer term, we are not including them in the current project as the methods to measure them are not yet fully developed.
Q. Why do animals have a toilet roll tube in the cage?
A. Mice like to hide in small spaces and are highly motivated to chew up paper and cardboard. These ‘fun’ tunnels or ‘rodent’ tunnels, to use the technical term, are a way of making the cage environment more varied and interesting that the mice seem to enjoy interacting with. They seem to prefer these to plastic tubes.
Q. Are the cages the mice live in big enough?
A. In the wild, mice are prey animals and are made anxious by being exposed in large spaces. They prefer to stick together in spaces where they can huddle together for warmth and comfort.
Q. What do your mice eat?
A. Nutritionally balanced diet pellets are provided in the hopper (you can see it in the videos in the top right hand corner of the home cage). The pellets are hard enough to allow the mice to grind their teeth on them but not so hard that they can’t eat them. They contain all the nutrients the mice need, including carbohydrates, protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals.
Below is a picture of the mouse home cage with various components labelled, including the diet pellets within the food hopper.
Q. What are the mice looking for when they are digging around?
A. This is a natural foraging behaviour. They could be looking for items to put in their nest or just bits of food that may have dropped down into the bedding. Scent marking and moving the bedding around are also an important part of their daily routines. Mice do this to mark their territory and as a means of communication within their social group in the home cage.
Q. Why do you film from the side of the cage and not the top? Wouldn’t that make telling animals apart a lot easier?
A. Images from the top do not give the kind of detail we need to understand the behaviours of individual animals within the group. This is especially important for behaviours such as grooming. From above, it can be very hard to see what the mouse is doing.
Q. There are a lot of ‘None of the above’ selections. Is this going to be an issue for the project?
A. This information is also important and in itself is valuable data so no, it will not be an issue for the project.
Q. I would like to know more about the kind of work you do, and how you choose which genes to study. Where can I find this information?
A. The genes being studied depends on the biological question being asked by the individual research groups. For example, a group studying diabetes might study genes that make proteins in the pancreas, have been found to be changed in diabetic patients or are suspected to be involved in the process of making insulin. Many medical conditions have a genetic basis but we don’t have a clear picture of exactly which genes are involved or the underlying mechanisms. Finding out more about these mechanisms, and how they can go wrong in disease, will help towards developing new treatments.
To find out more about the research taking place at MRC Harwell or to contact us please follow the link bellow:
https://www.har.mrc.ac.uk/research
To find out more about the research funded by the NC3Rs
https://www.nc3rs.org.uk/our-science
Q. I have more questions?
A. Please drop us a message in the 'Technical help'click here section and we will use your feedback to make our FAQ section more informative.