Behavior Analysis and Experiment Development Resources

Open Source

DeepLabCut

Open-source software toolbox for state-of-the-art markerless pose estimation of animals performing various behaviors. As long as you can see (label) what you want to track, you can use this toolbox, as it is animal and object agnostic. Currently the main branch employs DLC in TensorFlow, but DLC 3.0 using PyTorch is under development, go to the pytorch_dlc branch to try it out 💪🏼

PoseR

A deep learning toolbox for decoding animal behaviour, developed by the awesome Pierce Mullen

Bonsai

Bonsai is a visual language for reactive programming. It is lightweight and easy to use with a variety of packages and modules for interfacing with hardware and for real-time processing and manipulation of data streams. It is great for creating workflows for conducting behavior experiments, and have modules for e.g. live pose estimation (DLC) and calcium imaging using neurophotometrics.

Godot

Open-source game engine for designing video games, can also be used for developing behavior experiments, can be used with Bonsai.

Blender

Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software tool, which I have used for creating stimuli for virtual behavior experiments.

Commercial Software

Ethovision XT

While I prefer open source software, EthoVision is very easy to use and provide good plug-and-play behavior analysis.