Instinctive Behavior
Closed-loop mouse behavior system — real-time centroid, speed, head angle, and Freezing / Flight analysis, with threshold-triggered Looming and optogenetic-compatible stimuli. Turn innate-fear experiments from manual stimulation into fully automated closed loops.
HARDWARE & SOFTWARE
Open-field capture hardware and feedback analysis software as one system — overhead camera, top display, real-time closed-loop behavior, and report export.
Hardware
Open-field arena, overhead visual display, and top camera — optional shelter safe zone; one host controls stimulation and video capture.
Software
GUI stimulus control with live centroid, speed, Freezing / Flat metrics — auto-trigger random stimuli at thresholds, plus trajectory, heatmap, and stats reports.
CAPABILITIES
Traditional looming often relies on manual stimulation and offline review. The feedback system folds watch → threshold → stimulate → re-analyze into one closed loop for efficiency and reproducibility.
Live multi-variable parsing — when centroid enters an ROI or speed/pose hits thresholds, auto-trigger visual or light stimuli and keep monitoring.
Adjustable disk gray level, size, frequency, and duration — random sequences reduce habituation and better mimic predator approach.
Speed and frame-change cues classify freeze, flight, and free motion — low gray / low frequency favor freezing; high intensity favors escape to shelter.
STIMULUS PARADIGMS
Eight built-in black-disk paradigms — center, overhead, forward, corner fans, and diagonal sweeps — with room to customize further visual stimuli.
Disk appears at screen center — expanding overhead shadow.
Disk presented over the mouse’s overhead zone.
Disk at about 20° in front of the mouse.
Fan-shaped disks at four corners — peripheral threat bearings.
Disk sweeps diagonally from top-left to bottom-right.
Disk sweeps diagonally from bottom-left to top-right.
Disk sweeps diagonally from top-right to bottom-left.
Disk sweeps diagonally from bottom-right to top-left.
BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
From live variables to visual reports — kinematics and defensive-state readouts for innate-fear experiments.
Accurate centroid (X, Y) with trajectories and zone dwell time.
Live speed readout with speed curves / speed heatmaps.
Head-angle estimation and vigorous head-motion detection.
Automatic Freezing / Flat state detection and timing.
Corner-pass counts plus safe-zone entry time and visits.
Charts, heatmaps, box plots, and basic statistical tests.
APPLICATIONS
For innate-fear circuits, sensory processing, and fear-related disease models — extensible to visual-illusion and other custom visual-stimulus studies.
Pair optogenetics with closed-loop behavior to parse SC and related nuclei in freeze / flight decisions.
Compare freeze vs. shelter-escape tendencies across gray-level and frequency gradients.
Quantify abnormal defense and habituation deficits under threat for fear-related disorder research.
Beyond innate fear — visual-illusion and other vision paradigms can be customized on request.
SPECIFICATIONS
Standard hardware/software configuration for mouse Looming innate-fear and feedback behavior experiments.
Contact us for the eight paradigms, closed-loop threshold strategies, TTL integration, and experiment design.
