Open Source platform for Sensory Tasks

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.

This research tool was created by your colleagues. Please acknowledge the Principal Investigator, cite the article in which the tool was described, and include an RRID in the Materials and Methods of your future publications.  RRID:SCR_021468