Social Interaction

The social interaction or shoaling test is used to assess anxiety-related behavior and social phenotypes in groups of fish. The maintenance of tight shoal cohesion is associated with predator avoidance and reflects fish anxiety or stress. When subject to an environmental or chemical stressor, the average inter-fish distance within a shoal is reduced (tight cohesion) when compared to the same distance in the absence of a stressor (reduced cohesion). The shoaling test has been useful in demonstrating the effects of anti-anxiety drugs on modifying shoal cohesion behavior in fish. A typical experiment entails multiple fish in a tank in which a pharmacological drug or stressor is added to induce anxiety. Their social cohesion is then quantified from video captured images to measure the average distance among all fish in the shoal as well as the nearest neighbour distance and farthest neighbour distance.

Analysing Shoaling experiments using Actual products is easy, and ActualTrack: Fish Edition is designed specifically for analysing fish behavior. Multiple fish in the Shoaling Test set-up are monitored with a video camera, mounted above (for general locomotor behavior), or to the side (for anxiety related behavior) of the experimental tank, and is connected to a computer to record a video file. ActualTrack: Fish Edition software analyses the video file and utilises three-point fish tracking (head, centre of mass, and end of tail) to identify individual fish within the arena and determine their location. ActualTrack: Fish Edition you can define regions for the tank and accurately and automatically monitor entry of the fish in to specified regions based on the location of individual fish head, centre of mass, and end of tail (or any combination thereof). With ActualTrack: Fish Edition, locomotor activity within an Shoaling Test is easily assessed and quantified in any region within the tank as defined by the user.

What you need to perform Social Interaction experiments using ActualTrack: Fish Edition:

- Digital Camera: from standard digital video camera to professional digital High Definition cameras (to enhance resolution of very small animals or large arenas). ActualTrack: Fish Edition can work with almost any common video format. See our recommended camera list for the most appropriate camera for your set-up.

- ActualCapture Software (optional) - enables easy direct recording of your experiment to a digital video file. This is recommended when you do not already have a camera and recording software. If you would like us to arrange and supply recording set-up, please contact us.

- Lighting: diffuse lighting from directly above or below,or infrared (IR) lighting for recording during the dark

- Fish shoal in an aquatic tank

- A computer with a web browser and web access (see requirements for details).

- ActualTrack: Fish Edition software.

Our tracking, scoring and video capture software can be easily optimised to a broad range of hardware and experimental set-ups to ensure the best possible conditions for your video analysis. If required, please contact us for recommendations and a list of preferred suppliers of hardware.

What you can analyse in a Social Interaction Test experiment using ActualTrack: Fish Edition:

- Locomotor results: Inter-fish distance (cm), Distance travelled (cm), Average Speed (cm / s), Locomotor results for each zone defined in the fish tank. Angular velocity and fish swim path.

- Zone results based on fish location within the tank: Time spent in each zone [s], Time spent in each zone [%], Latency to each first zone entry [s], Number of visits to each zone [n], Number of visits to each zone [%], First zone visited, Zone transitions & timings, Average time spent per visit to each zone, Angular velocity and fish swim path.

- Visualisations: Birds nest plot, heat map.

- ActualScore functionality allows for integrated manual coding user defined behaviors.

- All results are calculated automatically and provided in an easy to use CSV format which can be imported in to most statistical analysis packages for further investigation and graphical representation.

- and much more...

For more information, see the product information, or get in touch to find out more about how ActualTrack: Fish Edition could help you achieve the results you need.