COPEWELL PROJECT
The exhaustive exploratory analysis of AutoDiscovery was key to design our classification model of animals by their coping style...
Dr. Mackenzie, University of Stirling (Scotland)
What Is This Work About?
The COPEwell project aims is to develop a new integrative framework for the study of fish welfare based on the concepts of allostasis, appraisal and coping styles.
It wants to provide a deeper understanding of the underpinning mechanisms involved in variation in individual coping styles and ability. The project also focuses on the understanding of how fish experience their world, and what effects early life experiences have on later development and coping abilities.
Within a multidisciplinary research team, Dr. Simon Mackenzie (Group Leader) and Sònia Rey-Planellas (Postdoc Researcher) applied AutoDiscovery to the working packages WP1 and WP2 of this project.
Dr. Simon Mackenzie
(Group Leader)
Dr. Sònia Rey-Planellas
(Postdoc Researcher)
What Problem Did They Face?
With the goal of establishing a link between stress coping ability and brain function in Atlantic salmon, they performed a battery of behavioral tests to more than 480 animals and assessed the expression of target genes related to coping styles (learning, memory, neuronal plasticity, etc.).
This led to a complex multi-dimensionality exploratory problem with 75 variables and 6 related sources of information for which PCA analysis was insufficient due to the manual efforts it required.
Which Was The Contribution Of AutoDiscovery To This Work?
The main AutoDiscovery features applied to this work were:
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The automatic consolidation of the behavioral and gen expression data.
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The exhaustive evaluation of relationships within the different data subsets (depth of analysis)
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The Hypo Booster tool to explore the relationships between the behavioral tests efficiently.
Would you like to contact Dr. Mackenzie?
Address:
Pathfoot Building
University of Stirling
Stirling
Stirlingshire, FK9 4LA, UK
Phone:
+44 (0)1786 467874
Email:
