NC4Touch : an open-source platform for rodent behavioural training
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Biomedical Engineering, School of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Modara, Gelareh
issued: 2025-04-24T16:04:27Z
issued: 2025
related degree: Master of Applied Science - MASc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Touchscreen-based cognitive testing has become a popular tool for assessing a wide spectrum of neuropsychological functions in both human and animal models. Specifically, rodent touchscreen paradigms were pioneered in the 1990s and have undergone significant refinement, with modern commercial systems—such as the Bussey-Saksida system—offering advanced features and greater standardization. Commercially available rodent touchscreen chambers have become very popular tools, benefiting from consistent hardware, software, and training protocols. These systems offer many advantages, including automated data collection, high throughput, strong translatability, and improved standardization across studies—contributing to more replicable and reliable outcomes. However, their high cost presents a significant financial barrier to widespread adoption. Recent open-source initiatives address these limitations by leveraging affordable components (e.g., Raspberry Pi, Arduino) and publicly shared designs and software. Projects such as the ArduiPod Box, the Raspberry Pi touchscreen operant chamber, and Visiomode illustrate different approaches to creating cost-efficient, customizable systems. Despite offering substantial financial and design flexibility, these setups often face their own challenges, including limited user interfaces, data handling constraints, and incomplete hardware documentation. Consequently, there remains a need for an open-source solution that combines user-friendliness, robustness, scalability, and aesthetic appeal while maintaining affordability. Therefore, we developed a customizable, cost-efficient (approximately $500) cognitive touchscreen chamber called NC4Touch for mouse and rat behavioral experiments. It features capacitive touchscreens alongside a feeding port, allowing straightforward training for tasks such as visual pairwise discrimination. Moreover, the user-friendly graphical interface provides real-time control and customization of tasks, supports v…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/90759
note: NC4TOUCH: AN OPEN-SOURCE PLATFORM FOR RODENT BEHAVIOURAL TRAINING by Gelareh Modara B.Sc., Simon Fraser University, 2021 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF APPLIED SCIENCE in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Biomedical Engineering) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2025 © Gelareh Modara, 2025 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: NC4Touch: An Open-Source Platform for Rodent behavioral Training submitted by Gelareh Modara in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science in Biomedical Engineering Examining Committee: Dr. Manu Madhav, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, UBC Co-supervisor Dr. Jason Snyder, Associate Professor, Psychology, UBC Co-supervisor Dr. Kurt Haas, Professor, Cellular & Physiological Sciences, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Additional Supervisory Committee Members: Dr. Catherine Winstanley, Professor, Psychology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member ii Abstract Touchscreen-based cognitive testing has become a popular tool for assessing a wide spectrum of neuropsychological functions in both human and animal models. Specifically, rodent touchscreen paradigms were pioneered in the 1990s and have undergone significant refinement, with modern commercial systems—such as the Bussey-Saksida system—offering advanced features and greater standardization. Commercially available rodent touchscreen chambers have become very popular tools, benefiting from consistent hardware, software, and training protocols. These systems offer many advantages, including automated data collection, high throughput, strong translatability, and improved standardization across studies—contributing to more replicable and reliable outcomes. However, their high cost presents a significant financial barrier to widespread adoption. Re…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2025-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0448558
language: eng
degree discipline: Biomedical Engineering
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Madhav, Manu
contributor: Snyder, Jason
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90759