Project description
From a lab animal perspective: real-time smart cameras for head and eye tracking
As popular models of cognitive function, rodents are often used for understanding tasks such as perception, memory and decision-making. To properly study these abilities, recordings on conscious animals engaged in these behaviours is necessary. Furthermore, in order to relate it to the underlying brain activity, it's necessary to track real-time motor behaviour. The EU-funded SMARTLABCAM project will develop innovative, minimally invasive and user-friendly head- and eye-tracking devices. It aims to migrate the tracking algorithms developed for the LEARN2SEE project to real-time smart cameras, processing head/eye video streams. The project hopes to transform these tracking devices into a commercial product to support the growing market of neurophysiology laboratories that are using rodents as model organisms.
Objective
Rodents have become very popular models of cognitive functions, such as perception, memory and decision-making. Understanding the neuronal substrates of these processes requires performing neurophysiological recordings in awake animals, engaged in complex behavioral tasks. This, in turn, calls for tracking in real-time the motor behavior of the animal, to relate it to the underlying brain activity. Custom, as well as commercial, solutions exist that allows tracking basic behaviors in rodents – e.g. the 2D position and orientation of an animal over the arena where he navigates. However, while carrying out the research of the ERC project LEARN2SEE, we realized that methods for 3D reconstruction of some key behavioral features (e.g. pose of the head and gaze direction) are not commercially available, and the custom solutions found in the literature lack generality and are hard to implement and replicate. This prompted us to develop innovative, minimally invasive and user-friendly solutions to head/eye tracking in rodents. Yet, we soon faced another challenge – in order to perform high-throughput experiments, by testing in parallel many subjects (one of the advantages of rodent models over larger laboratory animals), our head/eye trackers would need to be re-engineered to make them easily replicable for series production. Critically, this would also allow transforming them into commercial devices for the ever-growing market of neurophysiology laboratories that, especially in the field of vision science, are employing rodents as model organisms. Here, we present our plan to achieve this goal, by migrating the tracking algorithms we developed for the LEARN2SEE project to smart cameras, engineered for real-time, on-board processing of head/eye video streams. These cameras will become a new product line of CyNexo, a recently established SISSA startup that operates in the market of laboratory equipment and is looking to expand its products’ package to videography tools.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences neurobiology cognitive neuroscience
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering electronic engineering sensors optical sensors
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-POC-LS - ERC Proof of Concept Lump Sum Pilot
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2019-PoC
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
34136 Trieste
Italy
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.