Whisker Tracking During Simulated Tunnel Running in Head-Fixed Mice
This video illustrates whisker tracking in a head-fixed mouse, recorded with a top-down camera and accelerated 5 times. A rotating cylinder moves back and forth between two positions—either within reach of the whiskers or out of reach. The cylinder maintains a constant rotational speed, simulating the tactile experience of a mouse running through a tunnel and brushing its whiskers against the walls. This setup mimics natural tactile interactions while the mouse remains head-fixed. The cylinder is presented to the mouse every 20 seconds. Using DeepLabCut (DLC), I precisely track four distinct whiskers, each with four detection points. This tracking enables the analysis of whisker movement patterns, bending angles at the whisker base relative to the mouse’s body, and the phase of whisker motion. These whisking data are aligned with additional multimodal datasets, including the timing of whisker stimulation events, locomotion on the treadmill, pupil diameter, and neuronal activity from several hundred neurons. This experiment bridges sensory stimulation and neural activity, providing valuable insights into how tactile feedback, locomotion, arousal, and neuronal coding are integrated in awake, behaving mice.