SEXRAT MALE: A smartphone and tablet application to annotate and process live sexual behavior in male rodents

Abstract

Background: In behavioral neuroscience studies, it is essential to accurately and easily record rodent sexual behavior. However, current systems are complex, expensive and often require a computer that hinders their use in situ.

New method: SEXRAT MALE is new software for the real-time annotation and process of live sexual behavior in male rodents.

Results: SEXRAT MALE works on smartphones and tablets Android™ operating system, and soon on iOS™. This software uses a simple algorithm based on chronometry and the counting of the behavioral states that the user taps on the screen. It can annotate, count and time a complex sequence of behavioral states by a human observer, such as genital exploration, mounting, intrusion, ejaculation, and up to nine wildcard events established by the user, such as rearing and female receptivity events. SEXRAT MALE reports time, order, duration, intervals, and the simple statistics of all events in the session through data files, which are easily importable from any statistical software. SEXRAT MALE showed greater precision among both expert and naïve observers analyzing sexual interaction, decreasing errors and providing greater accuracy of timing data. Additionally, it records and processes more information than the traditional recording, in terms of factors such as order, occurrence time, duration, events intervals, and other processed data.

Comparison(s) with existing method: Compared to the traditional, manual method, SEXRAT MALE is more accurate, reliable, and simplifies the process of recording and processing.

Conclusions: SEXRAT MALE provides a novel tool for accurately recording live male rodent sexual behavior.

Keywords: Male; Mating; Mobile application; Rats; Rodent; Sexual behavior.