Are you planning to use behavior or  movement for testing toxicity responses in organisms? Then we highly recommend that you take a look at how LoliTrack v5 can streamline such research.

Manel M. Habel, Adrian C. William and Vitally V. Khutoryanskiy from the University of Reading, United Kingdom, recently published a paper comparing manual tracking methods with LoliTrack v5 digital tracking methods, for toxicological assessment of planarian mobility.

You can find the full published paper of this work here:

Toxicological assessment of benzalkonium chloride using planaria mobility: A comparison of manual and digital tracking methods

Their work demonstrates the greater reliability, precision, and objectivity of LoliTrack automated video tracking and behavior analysis, over traditional manual gridline based methods.

In the study, they compared a traditional manual planarian locomotor velocity (pLMV) assay based on gridlines to our LoliTrack software to assess the distance travelled of aquatic flatworms  and demonstrated an overall reduction in locomotor activity in response to the investigated toxicant benzalkonium chloride (BAC) using both assays.

Interestingly, the comparison demonstrated that the tracking using distance traveled compared to the traditional gridline crossing method provides quite different results in the same experiment. This is directly touched on in the paper:

“The use of gridline crossings as a proxy for distance moved may lead to oversimplification and misrepresentation of locomotor activity due to variations in movement trajectories. These limitations underscore the need for a more robust and standardised method to provide precise, objective, and reproducible measurements of locomotion.”

Manual based assessment as  cumulative gridline crossing	Software based assessment as distance moved (LoliTrack)
Cumulative gridline crossing over 5 minutes for planaria exposed to increasing concentrations of BAC in artificial pond water. Mean cumulative gridline crossings ± SEM.	Digitally tracked distance moved over 5 minutes for planaria exposed to increasing concentrations of BAC in artificial pond water. Mean distance moved ± SEM.
The traditional gridline setup, which involves counting how many gridlines are crossed.	Zoomed in view of the LoliTrack software tracking a planaria. The line shows the midbody travel distance, and the green dots along the body tracks the midline, to calculate alternate metrics such as bend.

The article also highlight the abundance of new metrics that can be studied to help quantify other behaviors than just distance traveled. Which can lead to new insights and studies that were previously hard to assess in a reproducible manner.

“Beyond quantification, the digitalisation of this assay allows additional behavioural analyses, such as chemotaxis assays, bend quantification, or detailed mapping of planarian trajectory and movement. It also enables quantification of the proportion of time spent in active versus inactive states based on activity threshold settings, as shown in Fig. 5, providing complementary insight into chronic effects of chemicals and overall activity patterns in response to toxicant exposure.”

Figure 5 from the paper:

Overall activity (in %) ± S.E.M. of planaria exposed to increasing concentrations of BAC in artificial pond water over 5 mins.

You can use LoliTrack on its own as in this work by Manel M. Habel, Adrian C. William and Vitally V. Khutoryanskiy, but, if you are interested in carrying out similar work, recording and tracking the movement of small organisms, both aquatic or terrestrial, we recommend our CentriTower video imaging system!

The CentriTower system is a top-quality lens system designed to deliver high-resolution video images with zero parallax error and zero lens distortion in well plates or similar-sized vessels (e.g., petri dish), perfect for tracking using LoliTrack.
Use the CentriTower to create high-precision video imaging for behavior analysis in small aquatic and terrestrial animals like planaria, fish larvae, Daphnia, copepods, and Drosophila etc.