Freely Walking Optomotor Responses

Python
MATLAB
Dash
Automation
Pipeline for designing, performing and analysing fruit fly behavioral experiments within an LED arena.

Overview

Built a complete experimental platform that automatically processes, validates, and visualizes behavioral experiment data from a high-throughput screen of fruit fly visual responses. The system coordinates data acquisition, video tracking, and analysis across multiple computers, with Python automation services that monitor for new data and trigger processing pipelines automatically.

I developed all of the protocols, as well as the embedded functions for logging and syncing the visual stimulus to the behavioural camera, and the processing and plotting scripts. This repository was mainly used for a high-throughput screen conducted in collaboration with Aparna Dev but it also contains a number of development protocol from tests along the way.

Technical Highlights

  • Automated ETL pipeline: monitor → copy → track → process → visualize
  • Interactive Dash/Plotly dashboard for exploring experimental results (speed tuning, contrast tuning, behavioral metrics)
  • Pipeline status monitoring with auto-generated HTML reports for real-time experiment tracking
  • Centralized configuration system managing parameters across 3 networked machines
  • Quarto-based auto-generated documentation keeping docs synchronized with the codebase

Technologies

MATLAB Python Dash Plotly pixi Quarto