Our bioRxiv preprint combines markerless pose estimation with vector analysis to quantify hind-limb clasping objectively.
Hind-limb clasping during tail suspension is a standard readout of motor dysfunction in neurological disease models, but it is usually scored by eye. VECTR-Clasp, an open-source R package, works with standard DeepLabCut outputs and SimBA classifiers to extract continuous kinematic measures such as snout displacement, directional consistency and lateral swing frequency. Applied to Cdkl5-deficient mice, it revealed stereotyped movement patterns that categorical scoring cannot detect.