Automated phenotyping of postoperative delirium-like behaviour in mice reveals the therapeutic efficacy of dexmedetomidine

Abstract Postoperative delirium (POD) is a complicated and harmful clinical syndrome. Traditional behaviour analysis mostly focuses on static parameters. However, animal behaviour is a bottom-up and hierarchical organizational structure composed of time-varying posture dynamics. Spontaneous and task-driven behaviours are used to conduct comprehensive profiling of behavioural data of various aspects of model animals. A machine-learning based method is used to assess the effect of dexmedetomidine. Fourteen statistically different spontaneous behaviours are used to distinguish the non-POD group from the POD group. In the task-driven behaviour, the non-POD group has greater deep versus shallow investigation preference, with no significant preference in the POD group. Hyperactive and hypoactive subtypes can be distinguished through pose evaluation. Dexmedetomidine at a dose of 25 μg kg−1 reduces the severity and incidence of POD. Here we propose a multi-scaled clustering analysis framework that includes pose, behaviour and action sequence evaluation. This may represent the hierarchical dynamics of delirium-like behaviours.