Journal: bioRxiv

Article Title: Lightweight Adaptive and Recoverable Implants (LARI) for Chronic Single and Dual Neuropixels 2.0 Recordings for Naturalistic Behaviors in Feature-Rich Environments

doi: 10.64898/2026.01.13.699139

Figure Lengend Snippet: (A) Naturalistic foraging arena with key features of an ecology setting – foraging arena harboring food patches with sand and seeds is connected to a home cage. The home cage is attached to the arena with a narrow passage guarded by an automatic door, and a ladder to the arena from the home cage. The home cage and the arena have a height difference of 12 cm. Mice have access to both the arena and home throughout the 30-minute “Exploration” and “Foraging” phase sessions. (B) Full track of mouse nose and center-point extracted through deep-learning based tracking (Ethovision). (C) Naturalistic behaviors such as digging, eating, return to home and explorative behavior are expressed in the naturalistic foraging paradigm. (D) We also tested our mouse in another iteration of the foraging arena where mice encountered free access to seed pots, with seeds hidden in one of the pots, but were also given an additional choice to make an effort to acquire reward by pressing one of the levers. This allows one to contrast operant-conditioning style feeding behaviors to more naturalistic foraging.

Article Snippet: Behavior was recorded using EthoVision XT (Noldus) with GigE Basler acA1300-60gmNIR cameras, and movement was tracked using deep-learning-based three-point tracking.

Techniques: