Check out the Ethoscopes platform!
Ethoscopes enable high-throughput analysis of behavior in Drosophila and other animals for <$100. The system is capable of real-time video tracking, is based on raspberry pi, and even has its own R package for data analysis. All software and build specifications are available at http://lab.gilest.ro/ethoscope.
The de Bivort lab and FlySorter, LLC are happy to share on OpenBehavior their open-source Drosophila handling platform, called MAPLE: Modular Automated Platform for Large-Scale Experiments.
Drosophila Melanogaster has proven a valuable genetic model organism due to the species’ rapid reproduction, low-maintenance, and extensive genetic documentation. However, the tedious chore of handling and manually phenotyping remains a limitation with regards to data collection. MAPLE: a Modular Automated Platform for Large-Scale Experiments provides a solution to this limitation.
MAPLE is a Drosophila-handing robot that boasts a modular design, allowing the platform to both automate diverse phenotyping assays and aid with lab chores (e.g., collecting virgin female flies). MAPLE permits a small-part manipulator, a USB digital camera, and a fly manipulator to work simultaneously over a platform of flies. Failsafe mechanisms allow users to leave MAPLE unattended without risking damage to MAPLE or the modules.
The physical platform integrates phenotyping and animal husbandry to allow end-to-end experimental protocols. MAPLE features a large, physically-open workspace for user convenience. The sides, top, and bottom are made of clear acrylic to allow optical phenotyping at all time points other than when the end-effector carriages are above the modules. Finally, the low cost and scalability allow large-scale experiments ($3500 vs hundreds of thousands for a “fly-flipping” robot).
MAPLE’s utility and versatility were demonstrated through the execution of two tasks: collection of virgin female flies, and a large-scale longitudinal measurement of fly social networks and behavior.
Links to materials:
Researchers at the National Eye Institute and the University of Oldenberg, Germany, have developed the OMR-arena for measuring visual acuity in mice.
The OMR-arena is an automated measurement and stimulation system that was developed to determine visual thresholds in mice. The system uses an optometer to characterize the visual performance of mice in a free moving environment. This system uses a video-tracking system to monitor the head movement of mice while presenting appropriate 360° stimuli. The head tracker is used to adjust the desired stimulus to the head position, and to automatically calculate visual acuity. This device, in addition to being open-source and affordable, offers an objective way for researchers to measure visual performance of free moving mice.
Lucy Palmer and Andrew Micallef, of the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, have shared the following Arduino and Python based platform for Go/ No-Go tasks in an article published by Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.
The Go/No-Go sensory task requires an animal to report a decision in response to a stimulus. In “Go” trials, the subject must respond to a target stimulus with an action, while in “No-Go” trials, the subject withholds a response. To execute this task, a behavioral platform was created which consists of three main components: 1) a water reward delivery system, 2) a lick sensor, and 3) a sensory stimulation apparatus. The water reward is administered by a gravity flow water system, controlled by a solenoid pinch valve, while licking is monitored by a custom-made piezo-based sensor. An Arduino Uno Rev3 simultaneously controls stimulus and reward delivery. In addition, the Arduino records lick frequency and timing through the piezo sensor. A Python script, employing the pyserial library, aids communication between the Arduino and a host computer.
Yorman Ben-Shaul, of the Department of Medical Neurobiology at The Hebrew University, has shared the following about OptiMouse in an article published through BMC Biology:
OptiMouse is an open-source software designed to semi-automatically analyze the positions of individual mice, specifically their nose positions, in a behavioral arena with the goal of minimizing error. This software was designed to provide highly accurate detection of positions and to make the entire analysis process accessible and free by providing its own graphical user interface, requiring no prior programming knowledge. OptiMouse is different from other position tracker software in that it applies multiple detection algorithms to a single session while allowing a seamless integration of custom functions, controllable through the GUI. This software also makes the identification of frames with incorrect position detection easy to find so the settings for those frames can be adjusted, producing higher quality data.
The GitHub for this project may be found here.
In Frontiers Neuroscience, Tyler Libey and Eberhard E. Fetz share their open-source device for recording neural activity from free behaving non-human primates in their home cages and administering reward.
This device is designed to document bodily movement and neural activity and deliver rewards to monkeys behaving freely in their home cages. This device allows researchers to explore behaviors in freely moving non-human primates rather than simply relying on rigid and tightly controlled movements which lends itself to further understanding movement, reward, and the neural signals involved with these behaviors. Studying free-moving animals may offer essential insight to understanding the neural signals associated with reward-guided movement, which may offer guidance in developing more accurate brain machine interfaces. The behavior monitoring system incorporates existing untethered recording equipment, Neurochip, and a custom hub to control a cage-mounted feeder to deliver short-latency rewards. A depth camera is used to provide gross movement data streams from the home cage in addition to the neural activity that is recorded.
Josh Sanders has also shared the following with OpenBehavior regarding Pulse Pal, an open source pulse train generator. Pulse Pal and Bpod, featured earlier, were both created by Sanworks.
Pulse Pal is an Arduino-powered device that generates precise sequences of voltage pulses for neural stimulation and stimulus control. It is controlled either through its APIs in MATLAB, Python and C++, or as a stand-alone instrument using its oLED screen and a clickable thumb joystick. Pulse Pal can play independent stimulus trains on its output channels. These trains are either defined parametrically, or pulse-wise by specifying each pulse’s onset time and voltage. Two optically isolated TTL trigger channels can each be mapped to any subset of the output channels, which can range between -10V and +10V, and deliver pulses as short as 100µs. This feature set allows Pulse Pal to serve as an open-source alternative to commercial stimulation timing devices, i.e. Master 8 (AMPI), PSG-2 (ISSI), Pulsemaster A300 (WPI), BPG-1 (Bak Electronics), StimPulse PGM (FHC Inc.) and Multistim 3800 (A-M Systems).
Because Pulse Pal is an Arduino-powered device, modifying its firmware for custom applications is within the capabilities of most modern Neuroscience research labs. As an example, the Pulse Pal’s Github repository provides an alternative firmware for the device, that entirely repurposes it as a waveform generator. In this configuration, a user can specify a waveform, frequency, amplitude and max playback duration, and toggle playback by TTL pulse with ~100µs latency. The firmware can also loop custom waveforms up to 40,000 samples long.
Pulse Pal was first published in 2014, by Josh Sanders while he was a student in Kepecs Lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. A significantly improved second-generation stimulator (Pulse Pal 2) became available in early 2016, coincident with the opening of Sanworks LLC. Over the past year, >125 Pulse Pal 2 devices were sold at $545 each by the Sanworks assembly service, while several labs elected to build their own. The initial success of this product demonstrates that fully open-source hardware can make headway against closed-source competitors in the Neuroscience instrumentation niche market.
Sanworks Github page for Pulse Pal may be found here.
The Wiki page for Pulse Pal, including assembly instructions, may be found here.
Josh Sanders has shared the following with OpenBehavior regarding Bpod, an open platform for precision animal behavior measurement created by Sanworks.
Bpod is a measurement and control system for behavior research, most often used to implement operant (Go/NoGo, 2AFC) tasks. Its software controls a hierarchy of hardware modules, each powered by an Arduino-programmable microcontroller. Atop the heiarchy is a “state machine” module that accepts an abstract trial definition, relating detected behavioral events to progression through user-defined hardware states. On trial start, the module serves as a real-time controller in parallel with the non-real-time computer, reading inputs and updating outputs in 100µs cycles until it reaches an exit state. Measured events are then returned to the computer, where software updates user-defined online plots, and loads the next trial’s state machine.
The Bpod state machine has on-board hardware interfaces for TTL logic and behavior ports (a.k.a. nosepokes) containing a photogate to detect snout entry, a miniature solenoid valve for liquid reward, and a visible LED to deliver cues and feedback. Modules under state machine control specialize in larger solenoids, analog input and output, direct digital synthesis, and a gamepad interface (for human research). An Arduino shield is provided, for users to interface new sensors and actuators with the state machine.
By handling the time-critical logic relating measurements to environment control in an open-source embedded computing environment, the Bpod system provides experimenters with a powerful family of tools for rigor and automation in behavioral research.
Sanworks’ GitHub may be found here.
The Wiki page for Bpod, including assembly instructions and Bill of Materials may be found here.
Mariana de Araújo has shared the following regarding OBAT, an operant box designed for auditory tasks developed at the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience, Santos Dumont Institute, Macaiba, Brazil.
OBAT is a low cost operant box designed to train small primates in auditory tasks. The device presents auditory stimuli via a MP3 player shield connected to an Arduino Mega 2560 through an intermediate, custom-made shield. It also controls two touch-sensitive bars and a reward delivery system. A Graphical User Interface allows the experimenter to easily set the parameters of the experimental sessions. All board schematics, source code, equipment specification and design are available at GitHub and at the publication. Despite its low cost, OBAT has a high temporal accuracy and reliably sends TTL signals to other equipment. Finally, the device was tested with one marmoset, showing that it can successfully be used to train these animals in an auditory two-choice task.
William Liberti, from the Gardner Lab out of Boston University, has shared the following with Open Behavior regarding ‘FinchScope’. Although originally designed for finches, the 3D printed single-photon fluorescent imaging microscope has since been adapted for rodents and other avian species.
