Figure 10Figure 10. Track analysis screen.

The control tools allow for the selection of the track to be drawn (track 2 in the figure 10), from those contained in the file. Track is represented superimposed to the current zone definition, with a "B" signalling the begin and a "E" to signal the end.

Dragging the blue bar in the middle of the control tools or editing the values in the corresponding window (see "Start at", etc), it is possible to select a time period to be represented (for instances, the first 30 sec). This representation can be repeated, seeing the next period, until complete the full track..

• Permanence time
• Number of entrances
• Latency of the first entrance
• Max., min. and mean speed
• Distance travelled (as an absolute value and as % of the total time)
• Resting, moving slow and moving fast time (in sec and as % of the total time)
• Number and mean duration of rearings

Figure 12 shows, partially, the statistics windows. The folder’s window contains as many folders as full tracks (or portions) have been drawn. The text file window contains the same information, but already prepared for printing or filing. A track (or a portion of it) can be represented in several ways: the whole track at the same time, in real time (that is drawing the track at the same velocity at it was generated) or in "accelerated time". In the two later cases, a window can be open to show the current zone and the current permanence time. Other can be open for showing the cumulated resting, moving slow and moving fast time. These windows do not add information to those already available in the statistic folder, but it can on line illustrate the subject’s behaviour.

The distance between two successive position co-ordinates can be easily calculated and thus speed obtained. Distance between successive points when the subject is not moving is not necessarily zero, because of the random variation in luminance (narrowly around a mean value). Thus, it is necessary to establish a lower threshold for the delimitation of "restless".

In the other extreme, when the animal is moving, distance between successive points is high, and there is no problem in defining a threshold for "movement with displacement". In the middle range, that is there is activity above the resting threshold but below the ambulatory threshold, there is a nobody land.
So, it is possible to categorise track segments according to the distance between successive points into "resting" (distance is below the lower threshold) or "displacing" ("moving fast"; the distance is above the upper threshold). The middle range reflects body movement without displacement (in situ movements), described in the software as "moving slowly". The amount of time spent in each category is provided.

Most of the systems already available qualify the activity detected in the middle range as "stereotypic behaviour". It seems at least arguable that necessarily all these activity can be described as stereotypy, particularly being this behavioural category so specific. Besides stereotypy, these activity could be reflecting grooming or sniffing, etc. We prefer to talk about "slow movements" or "in situ activity", letting the behavioural meaning as a decision of user.
Additionally to the "standard" statistics, some specific calculations can be done if user is carrying experiments with a circular water maze, one of the most popular applications of the video based systems. The following is the information generated for the water maze test:

• Latency time
• Total distance travelled
• Mean speed
• % of time spent in periphery
• Mean directionality (relative to target platform)
• % of time spent in/out of a corridor joining the starting point and the platform
• Time spent by quadrant
• Number of crosses by an annulus centred in the platform

Most of the parameters described in the above list can be also obtained from the standard statistics, but it seemed helpful to group it for water maze users.
Besides the information described above, an "historical" file can be also obtained. In this case, information about time of occurrence of each event (entrance to zones, rearings, etc) is filed.

Obviously, all this information (including the track and the zone-definition files) can be printed and/or saved (as ASCII coded files) or transferred to the Windows’s Clipboard for further analysis.