In a recent study published in the journal Cell Reports, researchers used the machine learning (ML)-based Variational Animal Motion Embedding (VAME) segmentation platform to analyze behavior in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) mouse models and tested the effect of blocking fibrinogen-microglia interactions. They found that AD models showed age-dependent behavioral disruptions, including increased randomness and disrupted habituation, largely prevented by reducing neuroinflammation, with VAME outperforming traditional methods in sensitivity and specificity.
Background
Behavioral alterations, central to neurological disorders, are complex and challenging to measure accurately. Traditional task-based tests provide limited insight into disease-induced changes. However, advances in computer vision and ML tools, such as DeepLabCut, SLEAP, and VAME, now enable the segmentation of spontaneous mouse behavior into postural units (motifs) to uncover sequence and hierarchical structure, offering scalable, unbiased measures of brain dysfunction.