VLADISLAV - Firmware, Software, Bill of Materials
Description
VLADISLAV
This repository contains the dataset and analysis code supporting the publication "Ethical Considerations of Mitigating Data Loss: VLADISLAV, a Manifesto for Reliable Home Cage Systems".Device Description
VLADISLAV (VersatiLe Autonomous DevIce for Scheduled Learning Assessment Via Wi-Fi) is an open-source home cage monitoring (HCM) system designed for automated operant conditioning and cognitive testing in rodents.VLADISLAV is, to our knowledge, the first networked operant HCM system with remote batch control over tens of individual devices. VLADISLAV showcases the ability and potential of networked architectures to prevent data loss, which can require an animal experiment to be repeated, wasting time, funds, and, most importantly, animal lives.
VLADISLAV's implementation is based on the MIROSLAV architecture, developed by biomedical researchers using Arduino and other open-source platforms, hardware and software. The principle of operation is rarely seen in home cage monitoring, but is ubiquitous in consumer electronics (washing machines, fridges, vacuums...) for over a decade as the Internet of Things.
Thus, it is an ethical imperative of researchers to push towards the use, development, and investment in more robust embedded architectures.
In a home cage system: it's public funds and animal lives.
If something goes wrong, guess which one will send a message to your phone.
Key Specifications
- Data loss prevention: Networked embedded system (based on the MIROSLAV platform) designed to operate independently of a central PC to minimize data loss.
- Remote control: Wi-Fi-enabled for simultaneous, redundant recording to multiple devices and batch remote control of large device clusters (tested with tens of units).
- Automated, scheduled operation: Performs autonomous, scheduled sessions of operant conditioning tasks (e.g., light/sound stimuli, nosepoke responses, reward delivery).
- Low cost: Approximately 40€ per device when building 40 devices.
Study Context
The materials in this repository correspond to the validation study of the VLADISLAV system. The device was employed to assess cognitive deficits in a rat model of sporadic Alzheimer's disease (sAD) induced by intracerebroventricular streptozotocin (STZ). The study demonstrates the system's ability to capture longitudinal behavioral data and highlights the ethical imperative of using robust hardware architectures to prevent data loss in animal research.Repository Contents
- Data: Behavioral logs generated by VLADISLAV units during the sAD validation study.
- Device firmware: Arduino/C++ code which powers VLADISLAV, as well as Python data recording and helper scripts
- Analysis code: Scripts used to process the behavioral data, model system reliability, and generate the plots and statistical outputs presented in the manuscript.
Documentation
Most of the documentation is within the code itself as comments. Comments in Arduino firmware were partly generated using an LLM. No code was LLM-generated.See also:
Our previous work, Multicage InfraRed Open-Source Locomotor Activity eValuator (MIROSLAV), where the networked architecture was initially developed:- Publication: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-025-02719-x (full text can be found here)
- Repository: MIROSLAV-hardware https://github.com/davorvr/MIROSLAV-hardware
- Repository: MIROSLAV-firmware https://github.com/davorvr/MIROSLAV-firmware
- Repository: MIROSLAV-analysis https://github.com/davorvr/MIROSLAV-analysis
Files
davorvr/VLADISLAV-publication-v0.1.zip
Files
(11.8 MB)
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Additional details
Related works
- Is supplement to
- Software: https://github.com/davorvr/VLADISLAV-publication/tree/v0.1 (URL)
Software
- Repository URL
- https://github.com/davorvr/VLADISLAV-publication