Biology is inherently complex, variable, and shaped by many confounding factors. Yet most animal studies rely on episodic, low-resolution measurements that capture isolated moments and miss transient responses occurring over time in biological systems. This leads to low-sensitivity measurements that miss vital biological signals and fail to consider the multidimensional nature of the systems they study.
As a result, more than half of published animal studies cannot be reliably reproduced (von Kortzfleisch et al 2024). These practices have led to research plagued by inconclusive outcomes with drug approval rates near 10% (Schuhmacher et al 2025) with efficacy failures driving half of project terminations (Sun et al 2022).
Studies using animals should ideally include continuous measurement and an approach that accounts for the multidimensional nature of biological systems. Historically, options have been limited that can transform continuous observations into reliable measures and enable the required analysis at the pace at which biology actually occurs until now.
Find out why leading researchers are advocating for multi-measure, systems based analysis for animal studies.
The Envision platform was built on the foundation that biology observed as an integrated, continuous system produces insight you can trust. Envision extracts information captured in the Allentown Discovery™ IVC home cage enabling continuous insights for individual animals in a group housed cage environment. Changes in behavior and physiology are objectively quantified by rigorously validated computer vision algorithms which make biology visible.
Behavioral phenotyping in Rett models is especially challenging with subtle disease phenotypes such as motor deficit, cognitive impairment, and repetitive behavior. The standard approach relies on subjective human scoring using the Bird score, which measures gait, mobility, breathing, and general condition.
Performing a study with both conventional observational methods and the continuous activity scores from the Envision Platform demonstrated the advantages of the Envision platform.
Figure 1: Optimized Rett syndrome disease progression analysis with Envision
Bird score data (cumulative score for observed activity) for WT and Mecp2 KO males evaluated with varying doses of a putative therapeutic compound during daylight hours. More significant differences in disease progression are detected with the Envision continuous monitoring system over the standard Bird score.
The rigorous methodology used to develop the Envision platform's validated digital measures ensures plug and play detection of biologically meaningful signals rather than unnecessary time spent tracking down artifacts and experimental limitations.
Envision continuously, remotely and reliably measures key measures of animal health to provide unprecedented insight on the status of individuals, cages and studies. When animals are housed in Envision, husbandry staff can benefit from the intuitive, continuous outputs provided by HealthSense to rapidly detect changes in animal welfare.
Discover Envision's Health Monitoring Capabilities
JAX Envision is a secure, cloud platform accessible within a standard web browser. Build, manage your studies, and analyze your digital measure from a single application.
