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<p>Dear all,<br>
<br>
I am Stefan, a visiting assistant professor at the Department of
Neurophysics at the University of Marburg and Chief Scientific
Officer at Thomas RECORDING GmbH, Germany. <br>
We faced the same problems in the past and are currently working
on a solution, which allows freely moving primates to perform
behavioral tasks in their home cages or special arenas in
combination with eye tracking and single cell recordings.<br>
Recently we finished the first step, i.e. a training and
experimental unit for freely moving primates, which is
commercially available at Thomas RECORDING (please see:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.thomasrecording.com/products/neuroscience-products/primate-training-systems/incage-training-system-icts.html">https://www.thomasrecording.com/products/neuroscience-products/primate-training-systems/incage-training-system-icts.html</a>).
You can find a demo video of the system on Youtube: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://youtu.be/yDOZauNSwqs">https://youtu.be/yDOZauNSwqs</a>
<br>
In short: The system consists of a ruggedized tablet computer, a
flexible cage-mountable holding device and an integrated reward
unit. Currently the build-in front-facing camera can be used to
monitor the animal and its overall behavior. However, we are
currently working on a software update to implement basic eye
tracking features (fixation control, saccade-antisaccade-tasks,
etc.) to the system. <br>
Furthermore, a trigger interface for synchronization with chronic
recording devices (e.g. the wireless version of the AMEP system
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.thomasrecording.com/products/neuroscience-products/chronic-recording-devices/small-animal/thomas-wireless-system-tws.html">https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/jn.00504.2017</a>),
is in development.<br>
<br>
Taken together, I think this system should meet most of your
requirements regarding eye tracking and single unit recordings in
freely moving primates. At the moment, you can start training your
animals with the system and getting them used to the new
environment. In the near future, you can upgrade your existing
device with a new software package, giving you the possibility to
track the eyes of the primate and synchronize your behavioral and
eye tracking data with your physiological recordings.<br>
<br>
If you have further questions or suggestions, please feel free to
contact me anytime.<br>
<br>
Best regards,<br>
<br>
Dr. Stefan Dowiasch</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 14.07.2018 um 21:09 schrieb
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:visionlist-request@visionscience.com">visionlist-request@visionscience.com</a>:<br>
</div>
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cite="mid:mailman.2289.1531595368.24857.visionlist_visionscience.com@visionscience.com">
<pre wrap="">Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2018 12:00:45 +0530
From: Harish Katti <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:harish2006@gmail.com"><harish2006@gmail.com></a>
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:visionlist@visionscience.com">visionlist@visionscience.com</a>
Subject: [visionlist] About help on eye-tracking of head free
non-human primates
Message-ID:
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:CAOei6hAoRnc=aApwyws4R2WiZ6EXd9K4q-JPSj+u+TwWHi9ALA@mail.gmail.com"><CAOei6hAoRnc=aApwyws4R2WiZ6EXd9K4q-JPSj+u+TwWHi9ALA@mail.gmail.com></a>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Dear all
I am Harish, a post-doctoral fellow in Dr SP Arun's experimental
vision group at the Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science.
I'm posting this to get feedback from researchers who have tried automated
eye-gaze/head-pose/body-pose tracking of freely moving non-human primates.
In our lab we are trying to setup eye tracking in monkeys without any
head restraints. Our plan is to have a behavioural arena where the
animal is not head-fixed and can come up to a touch screen and perform
simple tasks in return for juice rewards. Since the animals are not
head-fixed, the eye-tracking needs to be done in a manner that can
handle change in body and head pose. We have been evaluating a few
commercial eye-tracking systems but find that the trackers have
difficulty in finding the face/eyes. It will be nice to have your inputs
on the following issues,
1. Is there a good eye tracking system that already has macaque face
appearance templates bulit in?
2. Are there any novel ways of placing the screen and tracker that
result in better eye-tracking? We have tried various ways of placing
trackers below the screen and at various distances from the animal.
3. Are there multi-camera eye-tracker systems that we can set-up from
different view points so that one or more can always have a clear view
of the animal?
4. Do these systems have hardware input for behavioral event markers and
analog/digital outputs of eye-gaze data so that we can sync it with our
neural data acquisition.
best,
Harish
</pre>
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