Knowledge Base

Activity

Aim

To detect and quantify activity bursts in embryos.

To Open the Activity Screen

Choose Acquisition > Activity.

Main Steps

1. Load the video files and detect embryos automatically.
2. Acquire activity data.
3. Adjust the Activity settings to detect activity bursts.
4. View the Activity statistics.

See Also

• What is Activity?
• Which video and image formats are supported?

Detect Embryos Automatically

Aim

To let DanioScope find the embryos in your video file, so their activity can be analyzed.

Important: Automatic detection of embryos for Activity analysis is only possible when the video is not distorted relative to the original aspect ratio of the camera image. If the video aspect ratio appears distorted, convert the video to a compatible format and adjust the video aspect ratio. Make sure that the video image has good contrast and the embryos are in focus.

If automatic detection does not work, indicate the embryos manually. See Add a Measurement.

To Detect the Embryos Automatically

1. To open the Activity screen, choose Acquisition > Activity.
2. Add videos by clicking the Add Video(s) button. To select multiple files, hold the Ctrl key down and click each file name.
3. Select the video you want to use first.
4. Using the playback controls, position the video to the point where you want to start measuring (if the first part of the video is not interesting), or leave it as it is to detect embryos from the first video frame.
5. Click the Detect Embryos button.
6. If detection works well, a circle appears around each detected embryo. If you have defined independent variables, the Independent Variables Values window appears on top.
7. If all subjects in the video have the same independent variable values (for example, when all embryos are 18 hours post fertilization (hpf)), then select this value from the corresponding list. If the subjects are of different type, for example one is wild type and another is mutant, you can later assign the values per subject. See Edit the Independent Variable Values.
8. Click OK. Each detected embryo is marked with a code Sn / M1, where n is a progressive number. M1 means measurement 1.
9. Some overlap between circles can be accepted for good data acquisition. Click the > button next to Detect Embryos, and repeat the procedure for the next video file.
10. When ready, acquire activity data.

Notes

• If an embryo is not detected, you can draw the contour of the embryo. See Add a Measurement.
• The video is analyzed up to its end. If a subject changes position significantly throughout the video, you must specify the stop time for the measurement (see To Set a Stop Time for a Measurement). Optionally, specify the new location as a new measurement (see To Add a New Measurement for the Same Subject).
• Below the video window, the detected subjects are listed. Drag the handle between the two windows to view all subjects.

See Also

• Add a Measurement
• Acquire Activity Data

Acquire Activity Data

To Acquire Activity Data

1. Make sure that all embryos are detected correctly in the video fragments you are interested in.
2. To acquire data for the current video, click the Acquire button. To acquire data for all videos where subjects have been defined, click Acquire All.
3. At the end of acquisition the Status column in the video list says Acquired.
4. Click the Activity Settings button and check that the Activity (%) peaks correspond to the actual behavior of the embryos. See the next section, Activity Settings.

Notes

• If you resize a shape after acquisition, the activity statistics for that measurement are cleared and the Status column says Next: Acquire. Click Acquire to acquire the data.