Noldus announces CatWalk XT Automatic Footprint Classification

Wageningen, The Netherlands – Today, Noldus Information Technology announced the release of CatWalk™ XT 8.1, including brand new Automatic Footprint Classification. This new feature will take research on footfalls and gait to the neXT level.

CatWalk XT is the state-of-the-art instrument for the quantita¬tive assessment of footfalls and gait in rodents. Designed for the evaluation of rodent models of neurotrauma, neurodegeneration, neurological diseases, and pain symptoms, it is a turn-key system, consisting of both hardware and software. It works by allowing the rodent to traverses the glass plate walkway, unforced, from one side to the other. A high speed video camera is positioned underneath the glass plate, and facilitated by Illuminated Footprints™ technology; it captures the actual footprints on video. This technology is extremely sensitive: it even detects the pressure differences between footfalls. The software program processes the images and produces a wide range of parameters based on the dimensions, positions, dynamics, and pressure of each footfall.

In previous versions of CatWalk, you would have to classify each detected footprint by manually assigning labels to the prints: front left, front right, etc. As CatWalk XT provides body contour visualization, this is easy to do, albeit a time consuming part of your experiment if you have a lot of runs to classify. That is why Noldus developed Automatic Footprint Classification. Ruud de Keijzer (product manager at Noldus) explains: "The desire to have the captured footprints automatically classified, dates back to the days of the first release of CatWalk under the Noldus banner. Not long after this release, we knew how to offer a solution to this desire, but we also realized that it required several  adjustments to the CatWalk system. The solution was implemented gradually until the release of CatWalk XT 8.0 in the beginning of this year, when everything was in place except for the classification algorithms. With the release of CatWalk XT 8.1, we have done just that and the result has truly exceeded our expectations"

Beta testing results are impressive: up to 70% time saved in footprint classification, and over 50% on total experiment time (compared to complete manual classification). With just one push of a button, CatWalk XT automatically classifies footprints in each run. It so fast – blink, and it’s done. But of course, you need it to be reliable too. And it is. If the system finds prints it cannot identify, such as if the animal puts its nose to the ground, it will let you know. It then prompts you to manually assign the correct label, or discard the print on the spot. After that, simply move on to the next run in your experiment. It’s that easy.

Albert Willemsen (marketing manager at Noldus) comments: "This has truly been a joint effort with the market. To improve our systems, we depend heavily on our customers for suggestions but also for testing prototypes and beta software. The feedback we received from our beta testers has given us great confidence that the Automatic Footprint Classification feature in CatWalk XT 8.1 will make the user’s life much easier. "

Interested? Visit http://www.noldus.com/content/new-automatic-footprint-classificationto see CatWalk XT and Automatic Footprint Classification in action!