Visual Stimuli Presentation Device

This apparatus is designed to present complex visual stimuli in rodent behavioral experiments, such as visual discrimination tasks, or visually guided choice paradigms. This low-cost device utilizes an Arduino Uno microcontroller, and three (green) 8×8 LED matrices to present a montage of visual cues across a behavioral arena. Diffusion filters were used to decrease the luminance of the visual cues in order to render them more suitable for rodent visual discrimination. The present design incorporates three light displays to be mounted above three choice ports (nose pokes, levers, etc.); however as many as 8 light displays can be controlled by a single Arduino. This flexible device can be programmed to display a multitude of distinct static and dynamic visual cues, can easily be integrated into an existing behavioral chamber, and seamlessly interface with commercial systems such as MedPC. The wiring diagram and schematic below detail the configuration of this apparatus in a MedPC-based system; however, this device can be controlled by any comparable system, TTL signal, or other device in a behavioral chamber.