This week, we continue our exploration of the impact of open-source tools in neuroscience. In our last post, we reported on tools used to measure behavior in studies using freely moving animals. You can find that summary here.
This week, we report on devices used in studies done in the home cage.
The word cloud shown above represents web page hits for posts on 25 projects that reported novel open-source devices for home-cage studies, and that have not been featured in our recent posts on assessing impact of open-source tools.
Six of these tools have also been of great interest to the community based on page hits on OpenBehavior and feedback in our training workshops:
- Feeding Experimentation Device (FED)
- A home cage-compatible feeding system that measures food intake. One of the first projects that we posted about, and one of the most widely used open-source devices.We posted about it in August 2016 (here).We also posted an interview with the developers of FED in March 2020, which you can read here.
- PiDose
- An open source system for oral drug administration to group-housed mice.
- We posted about it in July 2020 (here).
- DIY-NAMIC
- A high-throughput method to measure complex phenotypes in the homecage.
- We posted about it in September 2020 (here).
- Lickometer Box
- A low-cost solution to measuring drinking behavior in rodents.
- We posted about it in April 2024 (here).
- Home-Cage Automated Skilled Reaching Apparatus (HASRA)
- A system for individualized training of group-housed mice in a single pellet reaching task.
- We posted about it in October 2020 (here).
- LIQ HD
- A system using capacitive sensors to precisely detect licks across 36 bottles and 18 home cages.
- We posted about it in July 2023 (here).
You can explore more of these devices in the Measurement category of our database: LINK. To access devices designed for home cage experiments, click on the Homecage icon, as shown in the image below.
