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  • TECHNOLOGY FEATURE
  • Correction 23 May 2024

DeepLabCut: the motion-tracking tool that went viral

Mackenzie and Alexander Mathis were still early in their careers when their software created a sensation. Now they’re using it to support other young scientists.
  1. Jyoti Madhusoodanan

    1. Jyoti Madhusoodanan is a science writer in Portland, Oregon.

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Mackenzie Mathis poses for a portrait in her lab

Motion-tracking data challenges led neuroscientist Mackenzie Mathis to co-develop the computational toolkit DeepLabCut in 2017. Credit: Anna Olivella

People adapt their behaviour to their environment so seamlessly that it’s almost unconscious. We adjust our stride when walking in tennis shoes or high heels, or shift our weight when we land on a pebble. As a graduate student, Mackenzie Mathis wanted to know how our brains and limbs coordinate this change.

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Nature 629, 960-961 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01474-x

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 23 May 2024: This Technology feature named the wrong preprint server for publishing the DeepLabCut work and implied that the paper was also published in Nature. It also misstated Alexander Mathis’s shift in research focus as well as the months during which the creative work for DeepLabCut was done.

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