Chen Xinfeng, Li Haohong
Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2017 Dec 11;11:244. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00244. eCollection 2017.
Studying animal behavior in the lab requires reliable delivering stimulations and monitoring responses. We constructed a comprehensive behavioral platform (ArControl: Arduino Control Platform) that was an affordable, easy-to-use, high-performance solution combined software and hardware components. The hardware component was consisted of an Arduino UNO board and a simple drive circuit. As for software, the ArControl provided a stand-alone and intuitive GUI (graphical user interface) application that did not require users to master scripts. The experiment data were automatically recorded with the built in DAQ (data acquisition) function. The ArControl also allowed the behavioral schedule to be entirely stored in and operated on the Arduino chip. This made the ArControl a genuine, real-time system with high temporal resolution (<1 ms). We tested the ArControl, based on strict performance measurements and two mice behavioral experiments. The results showed that the ArControl was an adaptive and reliable system suitable for behavioral research.
在实验室中研究动物行为需要可靠地施加刺激并监测反应。我们构建了一个综合行为平台（ArControl：Arduino控制平台），它是一个经济实惠、易于使用且高性能的解决方案，将软件和硬件组件结合在一起。硬件组件由一个Arduino UNO板和一个简单的驱动电路组成。至于软件，ArControl提供了一个独立且直观的图形用户界面（GUI）应用程序，无需用户掌握脚本。实验数据通过内置的数据采集（DAQ）功能自动记录。ArControl还允许行为计划完全存储在Arduino芯片中并在其上运行。这使得ArControl成为一个具有高时间分辨率（<1毫秒）的真正实时系统。我们基于严格的性能测量和两项小鼠行为实验对ArControl进行了测试。结果表明，ArControl是一个适用于行为研究的适应性强且可靠的系统。
