NEW! CatWalk XT 9 with Interactive Footprint Measurements

CatWalk XT 9 takes yet another step forward in automated gait analysis with Interactive Footprint Measurements – a new add-on for the measurement of toe spread and paw angle. Furthermore, the new Data Segmentation™ technology allows you to get higher quality data from each time the animal traverses the CatWalk XT runway.

Interactive Footprint Measurements
The new Interactive Footprint Measurements add-on allows for the measurement of:
•    Toe spread
•    Intermediate toe spread
•    Print length
•    Paw angle

Toe spread and print length are used to calculate the Sciatic Functional Index. This index is used to evaluate recovery of sciatic nerve functioning in rats.

Data Segmentation Profiles
CatWalk XT 9 also offers new Data Segmentation Profiles. These allow you to select parts of runs based on speed parameters and number of consecutive steps. This increases the quality of your data and allows you to control for locomotor speed.

Additional run statistics
New statistics available in CatWalk XT 9 include those for footprint measurement (mentioned above), in turn used to calculate Sciatic Functional Index. Additional new parameters are single stance, initial dual stance, and terminal dual stance. These are used in pain research to determine how much time the animal spent on one or both of his hind legs.

Automated Footprint Classification
The previous release of CatWalk XT already included Automatic Footprint Classification. The name says it all; at just the push of a button, all the footprints in a run are automatically classified. If signals appear that cannot be classified, CatWalk XT automatically highlights the signal so that it can be labeled manually. Extensive beta testing shows that CatWalk XT's Automatic Footprint Classification can save you an estimated 70% of the time you usually spend on footprint classification, and thereby approximately half of the time needed to perform an experiment with CatWalk XT. An investment well worth its money!

"The automatic classification worked very nicely in a range of different animal models. The paw detection was very reliable. Almost all cases with some faulty paw detection occured in connection with dirt on the walkway. The Print and Timing view enabled to spot those problematic run sections with ease and allowed a manual correction. About 90% of runs needed no correction at all. It's real fun now for the experimenter to do the classification!"
(Sanofi-Aventis, Frankfurt)