Somatosensation is the body's ability to perceive sensory information from the skin, muscles, and joints, including touch, pressure, temperature, and pain. As part of my PhD research, I developed a novel technology to capture somatosensory-driven behaviours in mice as they move freely through their environment.

This project highlights selected illustrations and data visualisations I designed to showcase the technology and to quantify the exploratory behaviour of mice.

Read the paper in full:                                                                                 Precision Cutaneous Stimulation in Freely Moving Mice

The technology uses a camera positioned beneath a glass platform to capture the movements of the mice as they explore environments, such as a circular arena or a maze, placed on top of the glass platform.

I visualised mouse footprints as they explored a circular arena using 2D histograms of paw coordinates. These footprints represent moments in the gait cycle when the paws remain stationary. The histogram on the right captures the continuous motion of the mouse’s tail in comparison to the footprints of the paws.

Visualisation of the movement of left and right paw alternating in 2D space while the mouse walks.

Reconstructions of the mouse 'skeleton' when the mouse is turning in the circular arena.

Water rewards were delivered through ports on the left or right side of the maze. This visualisation shows the mouse's movement trajectory over an entire session from a bottom-up view. On the right, a single trial highlights the mouse running from the start of the maze to a reward port.

A transition matrix shows the mice predominately alternate between drinking water from the left and right reward ports.