{"doi":"10.3390/ani13010116","title":"NemoTrainer: Automated Conditioning for Stimulus-Directed Navigation and Decision Making in Free-Swimming Zebrafish","abstract":"Current methods for associative conditioning in animals involve human intervention that is labor intensive, stressful to animals, and introduces experimenter bias in the data. Here, we describe a simple apparatus and a flexible, microcontroller-based conditioning paradigm that minimizes human intervention. Our methodology exploits directed movement towards a target that depends on spatial working memory, including processing of sensory inputs, motivational drive, and attentional mechanisms. Within a stimulus-driven conditioning paradigm designed to train zebrafish, we present a localized pulse of light via LEDs and/or sounds via an underwater transducer. A webcam placed below a glass tank records fish-swimming behavior. For classical conditioning, animals simply associate a sound or light with an unconditioned stimulus, such as a small food reward presented at a fixed location, and swim towards that location to obtain a few grains of food dispensed automatically via a sensor-triggered, stepper motor. During operant conditioning, a fish must first approach a proximity sensor at a remote location and then swim to the reward location. For both types of conditioning, a timing-gated interrupt activates stepper motors via custom software embedded within a microcontroller (Arduino). \"Ardulink\", a Java facility, implements Arduino-computer communication protocols. In this way, a Java-based user interface running on a host computer can provide full experimental control. Alternatively, a similar level of control is achieved via an Arduino script communicating with an event-driven application controller running on the host computer. Either approach can enable precise, multi-day scheduling of training, including timing, location, and intensity of stimulus parameters; and the feeder. Learning can be tracked by monitoring turning, location, response times, and directional swimming of individual fish. This facilitates the comparison of performance within and across a cohort of animals. Our scheduling and control software and apparatus (\"NemoTrainer\") can be used to study multiple aspects of species-specific behaviors as well as the effects on them of various interventions.","journal":"Animals","year":2022,"id":284453,"datarank":0.29188652235829704,"base_score":1.9459101490553132,"endowment":1.9459101490553132,"self_citation_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9522,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":962702,"name":"Luciano Zu","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":962703,"name":"Jacqueline Summers","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":962704,"name":"Saman Asdjodi","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":356175,"name":"Eric Glasgow","orcid":"0000-0001-7729-3954","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":962229,"name":"Jagmeet S. Kanwal","orcid":"0000-0002-4529-3631","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":962701,"name":"Bishen J. Singh","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":60,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:29:36.828109Z","pmid":"36611725","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}