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Welcome to the Bpod Wiki

Bpod: An open source platform for rodent behavior measurement & real-time stimulus control.

MATLAB control software: https://github.com/sanworks/Bpod_Gen2

Firmware source code: Firmware Repository Directory

Computer Aided Design (CAD) files: https://github.com/sanworks/Bpod-CAD

Support forums: https://sanworks.io/forums/

Important

🚧 The Bpod Wiki has been migrated here from Google Sites - a major community contribution by George Stuyt! The legacy wiki will remain available to support old links, but its content will be frozen as of October 1, 2023.

Bpod highlights:

  • Bpod is an open source platform for rodent behavior measurement and stimulus control
  • Experimental trials are set up by the user in MATLAB, and executed by a hierarchy of real-time processors
  • Arduino based architecture simplifies user extendibility
  • A growing array of Bpod hardware modules encapsulate common behavioral instrumentation techniques
  • Since 2013, Bpod has powered behavioral data collection in over 150 publications

About Bpod

Bpod is an open source system for real-time behavior measurement in tasks consisting of multiple experimental trials. Experiment software is written in MATLAB, and device firmware is written in Arduino. Hardware can be assembled with DIY desktop manufacturing methods: soldering, 3-D printing, laser cutting and hand-tapping. The system architecture is low cost, and supremely hackable - precisely what is necessary to explore a space of behavioral metrics, or to train test subjects with high throughput. This wiki contains documentation to support hardware assembly and behavioral protocol development.

Bpod was initially developed in Kepecs Lab during its term at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, as a project alongside the lead developer's thesis research. It is maintained by Sanworks LLC, a company dedicated to developing Bpod and other open neuroscience tools.

Bpod builds on the central design concept of B-control, a system provided by Brody Lab at Princeton University for rodent behavior measurement. Experimental trials are constructed in MATLAB as finite state machines, and executed on a separate real-time Linux computer. Bpod builds on this central design concept by combining its parallel processing model with the accessibility of embedded computing in the Arduino language. Bpod provides a rich suite of software tools in high level interpreted computing environments for protocol development and online analysis, while real-time processing is delegated to an Arduino microcontroller network governed by finite state machine logic.

---
title: Bpod system concept
---
%%{init: { 'theme': 'default', 'sequence': { 'mirrorActors': false } }}%%
sequenceDiagram
participant matlab as Win/Linux PC
participant bpod as Bpod State Machine
participant external as Hardware Modules
actor subject as Test Subject

Note over matlab: Prepare session
loop
Note over matlab: Prepare state machine
matlab ->> external: Configure from MATLAB
matlab ->> bpod: Run trial state machine
activate bpod
Note over bpod: Experimental trial
bpod ->> subject: Stimulus
external ->> subject: Stimulus
bpod -->external: Ultra-low latency triggers
subject ->> bpod: Discrete behavioral events
subject ->> external: Raw sensor data
bpod ->> matlab: Return events + timestamps
external ->> matlab: Acquired data
deactivate bpod
Note over matlab: Save data
end

We love hearing about the awesome science that is generated with Bpod!

Please post on the Forums with your questions and feedback, or email us directly.