Extending WAAVES+: An animal and environment-agnostic, automated USV scoring platform for high-throughput social, behavioral, and neuropharmacological studies

Cornerstone Research Group, Inc., Miamisburg OH

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Abstract

Project Summary Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are known to reflect emotional processing, brain neurochemistry and brain function - key observations in animal model studies. Collecting and processing USV data is time-intensive, manual, and costly. Most importantly, it limits researchers? ability to employ fully effective, and nuanced experimental designs, and is a barrier to entry for other researchers. Automated tabulation of rodent vocalization data would reduce cost and enable researchers to fully explore mechanisms through multi-hour, multi-session studies. Addressing this limitation will enhance the efficiency of research and could accelerate new mental health advancements. Our overall goal is to serve a community-wide need for superior, automated USV scoring - alleviating the manual burden of USV analyses while facilitating and enhancing rodent- and mouse-based emotional processing research. Our specific objectives are to (a) develop an environment-agnostic, automated USV scoring tool that works ?out-of-the-box? without extensive tailoring or environment-specific training sets; (b) automate call classification and expand the parameterization of acoustic properties to provide researchers with additional data for investigating significant and behaviorally-relevant outcomes. This work will eliminate the cost and time barrier associated with USV-based research while simultaneously expanding the quantity of relevant data. We conservatively estimate an annual cost savings in the $100Ks, if not $1Ms. This work will form the foundation of a product that will enhance research throughput, reduce treatment development time and cost, and allow researchers to design and implement more complex experimental designs accelerating advancements addressing mental health disorders.