TadPool:

The goal of this sub-project is to explore possible interactions with tadpoles in a fun and interactive way. Our experiments are based on two papers [1,2] published by the Aizenman Lab at the Brown University. This project is conducted in collaboration with the Do It Yourself community lab, LaPaillasse.

Introduction:

During early development of Tadpoles, visual avoidance is tuned to a specific stimulus size and is sensitive to changes in contrast. How, can we take advantage of that behavior to make possible a interactions with tadpoles ? Inspired by a first paper [1] and our own experiments, we got pretty good results with the following setup:

A CRT screen is – such that the screen is in a horizontal position.
Tadpoles are put in a large petri dish and the border are covered by a black tape. Use an open top tank, the ceiling of your chamber is can cause all sorts of light reflections from the screen underneath.
Find a water level such that Tadpoles always swim along the bottom and that they make a 45 degrees angle with the bottom.
The ambiant light in the room should be relatively low, but not too much otherwise your tadpoles will be falling asleep.
To get better results, try to do the experiments in morning, tadpoles are stubborn and when it's tool late they just won't move at all.

Gameplay:

The following observations give us clues to develop a gameplay:

Tadpoles reacts better if the movement is smooth and slow.
If the tadpole doesn't react, don't try to stimulate it once gain immediately - you will only habituate it (they stop reacting to the dots really quickly). Wait for a while (20-30s).

Other Notes/Observations:

CRTs tend to heat, and as the water becomes warmer, the tadpoles seem to get drowsy.

External Links:

GitHub (some tiny programs to quickly try out visual avoidance) https://github.com/Antobiotics/TadPool
Vimeo: To check out our latest results: https://vimeo.com/user12748798

References:

W.Dong et al. Visual Avoidance in Xenopus Tadpoles Is Correlated With the Maturation of Visual Responses in the Optic Tectum, J Neurophysiol. 2009 February; 101(2): 803–815.
Khakhalin AS, Koren D and Aizenman CD (2012). Neural mechanisms underlying the collision avoidance behavior in the African Clawed frog tadpole. Front. Behav. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00168

Team:Evry/tadpool

From 2012.igem.org