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Ultrasonic Vocalization Device

Mae 156B: Team 11

Spring 2012

Sponsored by:

UCSD Department of Neuroscience-

Dr. Pavel V. Belichenko, PhD, MD & Alexander M. Kleschevnikov, PhD

Sam Aminfard, Phong Diep, Caren Fernandez, and Sonya Spala

Background:

Mice use ultrasonic vocalizations (called USV's) to communicate with one another as well as to express their emotions. These vocalizations are often recorded and studied to better understand how the brain of a mouse works. Neurological phenotypes in mice can also be determined by studying vocalizations. By analyzing how the mice are communicating and expressing emotion it can be determined if the mice have certain neurological disorders such as the mouse version of down syndrome. By studying USV's, researchers can also find out more about language deficiencies in mice affected by such disorders. These studies can also show if certain types of medications can help symptoms, such as inabilities to communicate and to understand speech.

Objective:

The objective of this project is to provide researchers with a method to perform behavioral tests on mice and to me able to record the vocalizations that occur during these test. The first goal is to build an ultrasonic recording system that will be able to record audio during a test and be analyzed side by side with video feed. The second goal is to build new Y-mazes in which the behavioral experiments can take place. Finally, we would also like to be able to record two mice at the same time and be able to distinguish which sounds come from which mouse.

Ultramic 250K by Dodotronic

Design:

The final design of this project has three main components. The first is the ultrasonic microphone used to record all of the USV's of the mice undergoing the behavioral experiments. The microphone selected was the Ultramic 250K because of its USB capability as well as the proper frequency range for this experiment. The second major component of this project is the program used to run the audio collection and analysis. The program built to execute the experiments (LabView) is interactive and easy to use. This program allows researchers to display information about the frequency and amplitude of the sounds made by the mice and is also capable of playing a video file for further comparison. The final component of our design is the Y-maze. The maze is built out of acrylic and its features include a 2 in base, 10 in high walls, and a "puzzle" like design. Sensors have also been added to the maze (two on each leg of the maze) in order to determine where the mice are in the maze at all times.