Currently, a major focus of our 30-person research and development team is software development.  In the behavioral research area we offer three systems: Schedule Manager, K-Limbic and MED-PC®.  A considerable number of “canned’ procedures are available for each of these systems (see the index below).  For standard behavioral paradigms, these often can be run “out of the box”.  Both the MED-PC® and K-Limbic systems have the added advantage of being able to easily make changes to procedures.  David Fuller, the creator of K-Limbic, is very helpful for showing people how to tailor K-Limbic procedures to their needs.  There are thousands of people in the field who can make modifications to MED-PC® procedures including our own staff.  In addition, the MedState Notation Repository (www.mednr.com) has a number of freeware MED-PC® procedures. 

One of our major projects for the MED-PC® system is a new version of SmartCR™ that will generate cumulative records of behavioral experiments in real time.  In the past, in order to produce real time cumulative records, a user had to purchase additional hardware and run an independent interface from a computer separate from the computer running MED-PC®.  Now it will be possible to produce real time cumulative records without purchasing additional hardware, and the CR software can run on the same computer running MED-PC®, or even a computer in your office communicating with the MED-PC® computer via TCP/IP.  We expect to release this major software update for SmartCR™ in the next few months.

Another area of interest for us is video-based behavior analysis.  One of our major applications is our Near-Infrared (NIR) Video Fear Conditioning System, which has been validated in a major laboratory.  We have concentrated our video research and development efforts towards improving chamber lighting (both visible and NIR), high-speed recording capability, and the ability to save this high-speed video in a digital format.  I will talk more about video applications next month.

Index Page From:  Behavioral Procedures and Software Using the MED-PC® System MedState Notation™ Procedures

SOF-700LA-1: MedLab® 8 Package SOF-700LA-2: Operant-Conditioning Lab Package SOF-700RA-1: FR Training Procedure SOF-700RA-2: Progressive Ratio SOF-700RA-3: Elevated Maze Data Collection SOF-700RA-4: Place Preference Data Collection SOF-700RA-5: Intracranial Self Stimulation (ICSS) Procedures

SOF-700RA-6: Radial Arm Maze Data Collection

SOF-700RA-7: Shuttle Box Avoidance Package - Includes 7, 13 and 11 SOF-700RA-8: Nine Choice Serial Reaction Time Task SOF-700RA-8A: Five Choice Serial Reaction Time Task SOF-700RA-9: T-Maze Training and Testing SOF-700RA-10: Drug Self Infusion SOF-700RA-11: Shuttle Box Step Down Protocols SOF-700RA-12: Triadic Learned Helplessness SOF-700RA-13: Shuttle Box Passive Avoidance SOF-700RA-14: Threshold SOF-700RA-19: Catalepsy

Input and Output from MedState Notation

SOF-731: MPC2XL - Data Transfer Utility SOF-732-1: Graphic Display Routine SOF-732-2: Wav File Player SOF-732-3: Control of Med Input/Output Modules from Other Languages

SOF-710: Animal Food Intake Monitor

Student Lab Packages - Rat

SOF-721: SoftCR™: Cumulative Record Graphical - Version 4.0

SmartCR™: Online Cumulative Recorder - Version 2.0

Software for Med Activity Wheels

 

Sincerely,

Karl R. Zurn, M.E.E.