A stereotaxic platform for small animals based on 3D computer vision and robotics

Abstract

Neuroscience behavioral animal studies often require injecting DNA material or fluorescent dyes into specific brain regions within the animal’s skull. Currently, these types of injections or surgical procedures are done manually by skilled researchers using mechanically based stereotaxic platforms. However, alignment can be very time-consuming and prone to error due to the small size of brain targets.Here we propose to develop a next generation stereotaxic platform for small animals by combining a three-dimensional (3D) computer vision sub-system and a full six degree-of-freedom (6DOF) robotic platform to improve spatial accuracy and surgical speed. With this approach, a video projector projects a series of structured illumination patterns onto an animal skull. Two video cameras are then used to capture two-dimensional (2D) images of the skull and the captured 2D images are processed to reconstruct an accurate 3D skull profile based on geometrical triangulation. Using the reconstructed 3D skull profile, the skull can be guided and repositioned using a 6DOF robotic platform to precisely and accurately align a surgical tool with the intention of reaching a specific brain target. This new stereotaxic system may improve accuracy and speed of small-scale brain surgeries for neuroscience studies.