Interactive Environments
Closed-Loop Experimental Design
Create experiments where the animal drives the environment. Using real-time behavioral detection and feedback systems, we design setups where stimuli are delivered contingent on specific behaviors — enabling causal experiments that traditional approaches cannot achieve.
Key Features
Behavior-Contingent Stimulation
Deliver visual, olfactory, thermal, or mechanical stimuli based on real-time behavioral detection. The animal controls the experiment.
Causal Experimental Design
Move beyond correlational studies. Create causal manipulations by linking specific behaviors to specific stimuli in real time.
Multi-Modal Sensing
Combine capacitance detection, video tracking, and custom sensors to capture behavior from multiple modalities simultaneously.
Flexible Actuator Integration
LEDs for optogenetics, odor valves for olfaction, Peltier elements for temperature, speakers for auditory — we integrate any feedback modality.
Custom Design Service
Describe your experimental question, and we design the interactive environment. From concept to validated prototype.
Proven Track Record
The optoPAD system is our most advanced interactive environment, published in eLife and cited 44 times. We apply the same engineering to your needs.
Technical Specifications
| Approach | Behavior-contingent stimulus delivery |
| Detection | Capacitance sensing, video tracking, or custom sensors |
| Feedback | LED, odor, temperature, vibration, or custom actuators |
| Latency | Sub-millisecond to sub-frame response time |
| Software | Bonsai-based closed-loop control |
| Delivery | Fully custom design and build |
Key Publications
optoPAD, a closed-loop optogenetics system to study the circuit basis of feeding behaviors
eLife (2019) | 44 citations
View publication →Bonsai: an event-based framework for processing and controlling data streams
Frontiers in Neuroinformatics (2015) | 689 citations
View publication →Related Applications
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