Open-source, Python-based, hardware and software for controlling behavioural neuroscience experiments.
Open-source, Python-based, hardware and software for controlling behavioural neuroscience experiments.
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DOI：
10.7554/elife.67846
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发表时间：
2022-01-19
期刊：
影响因子：
7.7
通讯作者：
Walton ME
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Akam T;Lustig A;Rowland JM;Kapanaiah SK;Esteve-Agraz J;Panniello M;Márquez C;Kohl MM;Kätzel D;Costa RM;Walton ME
实验室行为任务是一个重要的研究工具。随着对行为和大脑活动的提问变得越来越复杂，指定和运行结构丰富的任务的能力变得更加重要。对可重复性的日益关注也需要将任务逻辑准确地传达给其他研究人员。为此，我们开发了pyControl，一个用于控制行为实验的开源硬件和软件系统，包括一个简单而灵活的基于Python的语法，用于将任务指定为扩展状态机，用于构建行为设置的硬件模块，以及一个图形用户界面，该界面旨在并行地在许多设置上有效地运行高吞吐量实验，所有这些都具有广泛的在线文档。这些工具使大规模实施丰富的行为任务变得更快、更容易、更便宜。同样重要的是，pyControl通过高度可读的任务定义语法和自记录功能促进了行为实验的通信和再现性。在这里，我们概述了系统的设计和原理，目前的验证实验表征系统的性能，并展示了示例应用程序在自由移动和头部固定的鼠标行为。
Laboratory behavioural tasks are an essential research tool. As questions asked of behaviour and brain activity become more sophisticated, the ability to specify and run richly structured tasks becomes more important. An increasing focus on reproducibility also necessitates accurate communication of task logic to other researchers. To these ends, we developed pyControl, a system of open-source hardware and software for controlling behavioural experiments comprising a simple yet flexible Python-based syntax for specifying tasks as extended state machines, hardware modules for building behavioural setups, and a graphical user interface designed for efficiently running high-throughput experiments on many setups in parallel, all with extensive online documentation. These tools make it quicker, easier, and cheaper to implement rich behavioural tasks at scale. As important, pyControl facilitates communication and reproducibility of behavioural experiments through a highly readable task definition syntax and self-documenting features. Here, we outline the system’s design and rationale, present validation experiments characterising system performance, and demonstrate example applications in freely moving and head-fixed mouse behaviour.