Protocols

• Experiments in ANY-maze are defined by a protocol and it's the flexibility of protocols which allows the system to be used in so many ways.
• Protocols consists of different elements each of which defines a certain aspect of an experiment.
• Once a protocol has been designed it can be saved and used repeatedly in any number of different experiments.
  
• Some of the more important protocol elements are described below.
   
   

Video sources

• A video source provides a video picture of your apparatus to ANY-maze.
• Video sources can capture images from USB web-cams, DV cameras, FireWire cameras or analogue cameras connected to a digitiser. These devices can either be connected directly to your computer, or they can be shared devices connected to another computer on your network.
• Alternatively the images can be supplied by a digital video file recorded either in ANY-maze's own format or in almost any other standard format such as MPEG, DivX, Real, QuickTime, etc.
• A protocol can include any number of video sources and you can even merge images from two sources if a single camera can't see an entire piece of apparatus.
• Images from any camera can be zoomed and panned using ANY-maze's digital zoom function.

Apparatus

• You can include anything from 1 to 16 pieces of apparatus in a single experiment and ANY-maze will run tests in all of them simultaneously.
• For each piece of apparatus you need to draw an apparatus map. This defines the borders of the apparatus and can also be used to divide the interior into discreet areas - see Zones for more about this.
• ANY-maze can score many measures for the apparatus as a whole - here's the full list taken directly from the ANY-maze on-line help.

Zones

• A protocol can include up to 63 discreet zones each of which can consist of any combination of different areas of the apparatus map - in the example shown here, two areas are used to define the open arms zone in the plus maze.
• Zones can be fixed or moveable, where a moveable zone can adopt different positions for different animals and/or trials.
• You can control precisely how ANY-maze detects zone entries allowing accurate emulation of rules such as '4 paws in the arm'.
• Here's a list of the measures ANY-maze can score for each individual zone.

Sequences

• A protocol can include any number of sequences each of which defines a series of movements between different areas (or zones) of the apparatus.
• Sequences can be used to detect such things as rotations around a water-maze, centre crossings in an open field, visits in a certain order to the arms of a radial maze, etc.
• Here's a list of the measures ANY-maze can score for each individual sequence.

Keys

• You can use keys on the computers keyboard to score behaviours which ANY-maze can't detect automatically such as grooming, stretch-attends, etc. - you can define as many a 26 different behaviour keys.
• ANY-maze can score a range of measures for each key ( here's the list ) and each one can be reported separately for each zone as well as for the apparatus as a whole.

Switches

• Switches are used to sense the state of such things as photo-beams, levers, etc. and/or to control external devices such as shockers, lamps, motors, etc.
• ANY-maze is compatible with a number of different Input/Output devices which can be used to physically connect photo-beams, shockers etc. to the computer.
• One of the best such devices is pictured here - it has 8 isolated inputs and 8 relay outputs and simply connects to a USB port on your computer.
• Here's a list of the measures ANY-maze can score for each input switch - both for the apparatus as a whole and also for each zone individually.

Calculations

• Calculations can be used to derive new measures from those supplied by ANY-maze.
• For example, in the plus maze the system doesn't explicitly report "Percentage of time in the open arms", but by simply adding a calculation to the protocol this measure can be made available.
• Calculations can include functions which allow you to do such things as extract results from parts of a test (for example, the first 2 minutes of a 5 minute test) or to calculate a result across a number of trials (for example, the average distance the animal travelled in all of its trials).

Fields

• A protocol can include up to 12 fields which can be used to record additional information about the animals or tests in an experiment. In the example shown here a Gender field and a Weight field have been included in the protocol.
• Each field can be set to accept one of a range of choices (for example: Male, Female), a number or just free text.
• Choice fields can be used as independent variables in statistical analysis which can be extremely useful.

Stages

• Experiments can be divided into a number of different stages - for example, Training and Retention, where each stage consists of one or more trials.
• All the tests in a stage have a set duration but you can define Events which can cause the test to end before this - for example, finding the island in a water-maze.
• Retesting can also be set to end automatically - for example, a training stage in the water-maze might end after the animal has had 6 trials or when it can find the island within 30 seconds in 2 consecutive tests.

Example protocol report

To get a fell for how a real protocol might appear check out this example protocol report which describes the water-maze protocol used in one of the ANY-maze example experiments.
 

Saving and loading protocols

• Having designed a protocol you can easily save it and then reuse it in future experiments.
• Indeed most of the time setting up an experiment consists of just two steps: loading a suitable protocol and entering details of the treatment groups you intend to use - after this you're ready to run the tests.
  
  

  

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