Bpod

Bpod is an open-source platform for real-time behavioral measurement in multi-trial experiments. With control software in MATLAB and device firmware in Arduino, it is designed to be customized with the software talent in a typical academic Neuroscience lab. Bpod was developed in Kepecs Lab at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and is actively maintained by Sanworks LLC, a company dedicated to developing open source tools for Neuroscience research.

Bpod achieves real-time control by using finite state machine formalism to describe experimental trials, a design concept inherited from the BControl system (Brody Lab, Princeton University). State machine descriptions are sent to a network of microcontrollers for real-time execution, while the PC software displays online analytics and manages data storage.

Aside from the state machine controller, the Bpod project includes an array of Arduino-powered modules encapsulating common measurement and control tasks, as well as passive interfaces specialized for rodent behavior measurement.

Bpod hardware can be assembled with DIY desktop manufacturing methods: soldering, 3-D printing, laser cutting and hand-tapping. The system architecture is low cost, and supremely hackable - precisely what is necessary to explore a space of behavioral metrics, or to train test subjects with high throughput.

Bpod’s scalability and access equity hinges on support for hardware control in Python, the dev team’s highest priority. Other active areas of development include advanced proximity sensing, infrastructure for distributed experiments and coverage of additional stimulus modalities.

Project Author(s)

Josh Sanders; Adam Kepecs

Project Links

https://sanworks.github.io/Bpod_Wiki/

This post was automatically generated by Josh Sanders