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Neuromōmentum LabDEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY · NEUROSCIENCE
Open Tutorials / String-Pulling MATLAB Toolbox

String-Pulling MATLAB Toolbox

PUBLISHED BEHAVIORAL-ANALYSIS RESOURCE

A guided introduction to analyzing coordinated movement

String-pulling is a coordinated rodent behavior involving whole-body posture, head movement, bilateral forelimb movement, and skilled hand movement while the animal reels in a string. The published MATLAB toolbox provides complementary ways to characterize global motion and track specific body parts during this behavior.

This page is an orientation to the published toolbox and its existing public resources. It is not a newly developed Neuromōmentum Lab software release. For complete operating instructions and the current source, use the official GitHub documentation linked below.

DOCUMENTED CAPABILITIES

What the toolbox measures

Whole-body patterns

Optical flow estimates motion across video frames. Image and motion summaries describe overall position and speed patterns, while PCA and ICA reveal prominent spatial and temporal components.

Variability and complexity

Temporal analyses include Fano factor, entropy, and Higuchi fractal dimension. Spatial entropy, image sharpness, and Hausdorff fractal dimension characterize disorder, edges, and geometrical complexity in derived frames.

Posture and kinematics

Tracked features support measurements of body length and orientation, head roll, yaw, and pitch, and the paths and movement speeds of the hands.

Tracking with review

Image segmentation and heuristic procedures track the body, ears, nose, hands, and string-related masks. Users can inspect and manually correct automatic tracking when necessary.

PREREQUISITES

Before you begin

The toolbox is MATLAB-based desktop software. The public project instructs users to start it by running string_pulling_behavior_analytics.m from the main repository folder.

Documented MATLAB toolbox dependencies

The GUI was developed with MATLAB 2016b and was reported as tested with MATLAB 2019b. This is historical compatibility information, not a guarantee for current MATLAB releases. The repository recommends a display resolution of approximately 1920 × 1080 for optimal GUI viewing.

Check the official GitHub README for current requirements ↗

VIDEO GUIDE · 44:42

Tutorial for String Pulling Data Analysis Toolbox

Tutorial prepared by Surjeet Singh; hosted by Mohajerani Lab.

Watch on YouTube ↗

ORIENTATION

Typical analysis workflow

  1. Install and open: obtain the toolbox and launch its main MATLAB file.
  2. Load the video: select the behavioral recording to analyze.
  3. Set the view: define the viewing region of interest.
  4. Calibrate: set the spatial scale and measure string thickness.
  5. Select behavior: mark one or more string-pulling epochs.
  6. Define colors: establish color ranges for the relevant objects.
  7. Set processing regions: establish body and head windows.
  8. Generate masks: follow the documented sequence—string, body, ears, nose, then hands.
  9. Identify objects: find tracked body parts and other objects from the masks.
  10. Review tracking: inspect results and manually correct errors when needed.
  11. Analyze: perform whole-body assessment or object and kinematic analyses.
  12. Review outputs: examine or export saved processed data, plots, PDFs, and other results.

This overview is a map of the workflow, not a substitute for the operating manual. Follow the Detailed Usage Instructions ↗ for complete steps and interface guidance.

AUTHORITATIVE LINKS

Public resources

eLife publication ↗

A Matlab-based toolbox for characterizing behavior of rodents engaged in string-pulling, eLife 9:e54540 (2020).

Mouse String-Pulling Data on OSF ↗

Public source videos and processed data. Some processed datasets are very large; check individual file sizes before downloading. The files are linked, not mirrored here.

CREDIT AND REUSE

Citation and provenance

Article: Inayat, S., Singh, S., Ghasroddashti, A., Qandeel, Egodage, P., Whishaw, I. Q., & Mohajerani, M. H. (2020). A Matlab-based toolbox for characterizing behavior of rodents engaged in string-pulling. eLife, 9, e54540. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.54540. The article is distributed under CC BY 4.0 ↗.

Software: The repository credits development to Samsoon Inayat in the labs of Majid H. Mohajerani and Ian Q. Whishaw at the University of Lethbridge, with Surjeet Singh and Arashk Ghasroddashti as contributors. The code is released under the GNU GPL v3.0 ↗.

Video: Tutorial prepared by Surjeet Singh; hosted by Mohajerani Lab. The original YouTube video is embedded above; no Creative Commons license is implied.

OSF data: No declared license was identified in the current public metadata. The data are linked and attributed here without making additional reuse claims.