• Constructed from high-quality acrylic, the mouse cage boasts a front wall on hinges for easy mouse loading, which is securely fastened with a magnetic latch. It also features a stainless-steel mesh floor accompanied by a sleek drawer underneath, designed to gather mouse droppings for convenient cleaning and maintenance.
• Speakers to deliver auditory stimuli.
• Multi-camera recording to track animal’s path and capture detailed decision-making behaviors.
• Precise control over the animal’s behavior sequence through the implementation of four motorized slides that can be extended into or retracted from the behavior cage. Two of the slides hold levers with limit switches that can be pressed by the animal, whereas the other two slides hold tubes for dispensing food or water rewards.
• Food and water are released using solenoid pinch valves. Water is supplied through gravity from a syringe reservoir, while food mixture is dispensed from a syringe operated by air pressure to move the plunger. 
• Meticulous control of food and water disbursement at 6ul to ensure animals consistently engaged in all the trials without reaching a state of satiety.
• The entire apparatus is orchestrated by a customized field programmable gate array (FPGA) circuitry that coordinates slide motor control, logging and management of video and sensor data, pulse sequence for laser, video display, and dispense control.
• A control PC runs software to set experimental parameters.
• The time stamps (transistor-transistor logic pulses) of trial start/end, photo stimulation and water/food delivery were recorded and integrated with electrophysiology, allowing events synchronization with spike timing.

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Dimensions

Mouse

Apparatus dimensions: 20 × 9 × 11 in (51 × 23 × 28 cm) (L × W × H)

Cage dimensions: 8 × 8 × 8.5 in (20 × 20 × 22 cm) (L × W × H)

Cage material: Cast acrylic

Cage color/wall pattern: Customizable

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Rat

Cage material: Cast acrylic

All apparatus dimensions, cage dimensions, cage color, and wall patterns are customizable.

• Speaker for acoustic signaling and stimuli (Item #90008)
• LCD display for visual stimuli (Item #90009)

• Operant Conditioning.
• Decision Making tasks.
• Free consumption choice task with lick-triggered food or water delivery (Eiselt et al., 2021).

A lick-triggered consumption task was used to assess preference for selecting between water and food. Mice were provided access to the water and food spouts for 15 seconds. Every tenth lick at either spout led to the automatic dispensing of a food or water reward. Following the 15-second period, both spouts were retracted, and this was followed by an inter-trial interval lasting 4 to 30 seconds. Each session was comprised of 50 trials. 

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• Two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) instrumental task (Eiselt et al., 2021).

The onset of each trial was indicated by a 1-second tone at 12 kHz. Following a 1-second delay, both levers were extended and accessible for the animal during a 5-second response window. Pressing one lever resulted in the delivery of a food reward (6 μl), while the other lever press led to the dispensing of water (6 μl). The lever–reward associations were randomized across animals by the software. Once a lever press was detected, both levers retracted, and the corresponding reward spout was extended. Animals had a 5-second consumption period with access to the reward spout before it was withdrawn. This was followed by a variable inter-trial interval ranging from 4 to 30 seconds. If no lever press occurred within the response window, the levers were retracted, the inter-trial interval began, and the absence of a behavioral response was recorded as a "miss." Animals completed 100 trials during each session. A session was deemed successful if the animal pressed at least 68% of the time for water during periods of thirst or for food when experiencing hunger. Data collection and analysis were automated.