Ethoscopy & Ethoscope-lab: a framework for behavioural analysis to lower entrance barrier and aid reproducibility

Abstract

SummaryHigh-throughput analysis of behaviour is a pivotal instrument in modern neuroscience, allowing researchers to combine modern genetics breakthrough to unbiased, objective, reproducible experimental approaches. To this extent, we recently created an open-source hardware platform (ethoscope (Geissmann et al., 2017)) that allows for inexpensive, accessible, high-throughput analysis of behaviour in Drosophila or other animal models. Here we equip ethoscopes with a Python framework for data analysis, ethoscopy, designed to be a user-friendly yet powerful platform, meeting the requirements of researchers with limited coding expertise as well as experienced data scientists. Ethoscopy is best consumed in a prebaked Jupyter-based docker container, ethoscope-lab, to improve accessibility and to encourage the use of notebooks as a natural platform to share post-publication data analysis. Availability and implementationEthoscopy is a Python package available on GitHub and PyPi. Ethoscope-lab is a docker container available on DockerHub. A landing page aggregating all the code and documentation is available at https://lab.gilest.ro/ethoscopy.