Knowledge Base

Prepare the Trial List for Batch Acquisition

Aim

To make a list of the trials to be acquired in batch, either live or from video files.

Prerequisites

• Click the Show/Hide button on the toolbar and select Variables. When you track from pre-recorded video files, make sure that Video file is selected.
• Optionally select to display Arena settings, Trial Control settings and Detection settings.

Prepare the Trial List for Batch Acquisition

1. Add the trials you need.
2. OPTIONAL: If you defined multiple Arena Settings, Trial Control settings or Detection settings, for each trial select which settings you want to use. Either select settings for all the trials or for none at all.
3. Add video files to the planned trials, either automatically or manually. See the options below.

You can either select different video files for different trials or the same video for multiple trials. Choose the latter way of working if you made a long video with multiple trial recordings. If you choose the same video, EthoVision will start tracking at that point in the video where the previous trial stopped. To make sure that tracking starts and stops at the correct time point, you must define appropriate Trial Control settings.

TIP: If you want to use the same Arena Settings, Trial Control settings or Detection Settings for all the trials, select them in the Acquisition Settings window.

Automatically Add Video Files to the Trial List

1. Click the Add Videos button on the toolbar.
2. In the Add Videos window, select the video files you want to use and click Open.
3. Select one of the options under Sort order and click OK:
   • Date-time order. Selecting this option links the video file with the earliest date/timestamp to Trial 1, the next video file to Trial 2, etc.
   • Alphabetical order. Selecting this option links the video files to the trials in alphabetical order.

Manually Add Video Files to the Trial List

Click one of the cells in the Video file column. In the Select Video window, select the video file and click Open. Do this for the other planned trials.

Notes

• If you select more video files than the number of planned trials in the Trial List, EthoVision will add additional trials to the Trial List.
• If you manually linked videos to some of the planned trials, and for the remaining trials you use the automatic option, EthoVision only fills the gaps, that is, it adds videos to those trials which do not have video references yet.

To Carry Out Batch Acquisition

Choose Acquisition > Open Acquisition. In the Acquisition Settings window, select Track all planned trials.

See Also

• Acquire a series of trials (Batch acquisition)

Acquire Data

Main Topics and Tasks

• Introduction to Data Acquisition
• Acquire one trial
• Acquire a series of trials (Batch acquisition)
• Additional information on data acquisition
• Score behaviors manually
• Import data from other experiments
• Import Live Mouse Tracker data
• View real-time information
• The data acquisition screen

NOTE: If you plan to use hardware devices like a pellet dispenser or the PhenoTyper, see also the EthoVision XT 19 - Trial and Hardware Control - Reference Manual, which you can find on the Apps screen, under Noldus > EthoVision XT 19 Other Documentation.

Introduction to Data Acquisition

Learn About

• Important terms in acquisition
• Important things to know about data acquisition

Important Terms in Acquisition

Trial vs. Track

A trial is a single acquisition session. A track is the data collected during a trial. A trial can contain one or more tracks. See Trial vs. track.

Batch Acquisition

Acquisition of a series of trials, either live, or from pre-recorded video files.

Inter-Trial Interval

When you choose a live series of trials, an inter-trial interval between two consecutive trials allows you to take the subject from the maze or cage, clean the maze/cage and release the next subject before the next trial starts automatically.

Planned Trial

When you add trials in your Trial List, their default acquisition status is Planned. EthoVision XT acquires the planned trials in the order specified in the Trial List: Trial 1, Trial 2, etc. You can skip a planned trial whenever you cannot acquire data, for example when the subject assigned to that trial is no longer available.

Skipping a Trial

It may happen that a trial planned in the Trial List cannot be acquired, for example when the animal to be tested is not available. You can skip one or more trials and acquire a trial further down in the Trial List.

When you skip a trial (and all arenas within it), you can always set it back to Planned to acquire data at a later time. See Carry out trials in an order different from that specified in the trial list. You can also skip single arenas within a trial, for example not to acquire data in empty wells in a well plate. See Skip arenas within a trial.

Start-Stop Trial Rule

This is the rule in the Trial Control Settings that determines when actual tracking (data acquisition) starts and stops. For example, start tracking when the animal is detected in the arena. See The default Start-Stop Trial rule.