Stim Trigger

‘Stim Trigger’ provides a simplified GUI for controlling brain stimulation parameters and triggering methods, along with manual stimulation options and a counter to keep track of the number of delivered stimulations without the need of the full featured maze software (Fig. 3).

‘Stim Trigger’ software GUI. Top: Stimulus setting input boxes. Middle: “Send Manually” triggers stimulation with each mouse click, “Start Ext Trigger” turns on the automatic trigger, “Clear stim” resets the stimulation counters (right), Bottom: Radio Buttons to select the timing of the automatic trigger on the rising edge or the falling edge of the input TTL from the external triggering source.

Its main purpose is to offer an easy-to-use platform for researchers to control brain stimulation and integrate it with other behavioral equipment or software. The software provides control over electrical or optogenetic brain stimulation, allowing for both manual triggering by the experimenter and automatic triggering by the animal. This stimulation is converted into a bipolar stimulus by the stimulus isolator. Alternatively, a unipolar TTL signal can be utilized to regulate a constant or pulsed laser output for optogenetics. The former method is used alongside a nose poke that operates with a +5V TTL. In addition, a Virtual Reality maze is utilized, incorporating tablets and an Arduino, to deliver electrical brain stimulation rewards when the animal occupies a specific location in the virtual environment (^{Anon, 2016}; Anon, n.d.). Manually triggered stimulation can also be used to shape behavior, such as training animals to approach the nose poke. The software allows users to set the stimulation parameters through the GUI and uses the data acquisition device to trigger the stimulus isolator. As explained above, the duration and frequency determine the main characteristics of the unipolar signal and the duty cycle represents the ratio of time the stimulus is on compared to the time the stimulus is off.