Abstract
Animal research has always played a crucial role in various medical and scientific breakthroughs. They offer, inter alia, insights into diseases mechanisms, genetic predisposition to a disease, and drug therapy. However, the use of animals for medical research is a cause of major controversies and debates in modern science. To warrant high bioethical standards, new directives have been being adopted to replace animal research whenever possible, to reduce the number of animals, and to refine the procedures to minimize stress and pain. Here, we present two new approaches, based on thermal imaging (a remote and passive technology), to assess respiratory rate (RR) as well as exploratory behavior and general activity in rodents. In animal research, these parameters are gold standards for welfare assessment. The approaches were validated in a study conducted with both rats and mice. To test the feasibility of our algorithm to estimate RR, thermal videos from anesthetized rodents were acquired. The capability of the second approach to monitor activity was tested with videos of Open Field tests. Regarding RR, a high agreement between thermal imaging and gold standard (electrocardiography-derived RR) was achieved. The mean relative error averaged 0.50 ± 0.15 breaths/min and 4.55 ± 2.94 breaths/min for rats and mice, respectively. The second approach was capable of monitoring and tracking the activity of the rodents very well. This paper demonstrates that thermal imaging is a promising and relevant alternative for monitoring of RR and activity in rodents, thus contributing to the remote assessment of animal welfare.
Highlights
The respiratory rate (RR) of the rodents hovered around 51.85 ± 6.56 breaths/min
High correlations between RR estimated with thermal imaging and RR derived from ECG were observed; the mean correlation averaged 0.97 ± 0.01
The current paper aims to evaluate the capability of thermal imaging to monitor RR and locomotor activity, which are important parameters for evaluation of rodents’ welfare
Summary
Animal research has always played a crucial role in various medical and scientific breakthroughs. They offer, inter alia, insights into diseases mechanisms, genetic predisposition to a disease, and drug therapy. We present two new approaches, based on thermal imaging (a remote and passive technology), to assess respiratory rate (RR) as well as exploratory behavior and general activity in rodents. In animal research, these parameters are gold standards for welfare assessment. This paper demonstrates that thermal imaging is a promising and relevant alternative for monitoring of RR and activity in rodents, contributing to the remote assessment of animal welfare.
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