NIMH MonkeyLogic: Behavioral control and data acquisition in MATLAB

Abstract

BackgroundComputerized control of behavioral paradigms is an essential element of neurobehavioral studies, especially physiological recording studies that require sub-millisecond precision. Few software solutions provide a simple, flexible environment to create and run these applications. MonkeyLogic, a MATLAB-based package, was developed to meet these needs, but faces a performance crisis and obsolescence due to changes in MATLAB itself. New methodHere we report a complete redesign and rewrite of MonkeyLogic, now NIMH MonkeyLogic, that natively supports the latest 64-bit MATLAB on the Windows platform. Major layers of the underlying real-time hardware control were removed and replaced by custom toolboxes: NIMH DAQ Toolbox and MonkeyLogic Graphics Library. The redesign resolves undesirable delays in data transfers and limitations in graphics capabilities. ResultsNIMH MonkeyLogic is essentially a new product. It provides a powerful new scripting framework, has dramatic speed enhancements and provides major new graphics abilities. Comparison with existing methodNIMH MonkeyLogic is fully backward compatible with earlier task scripts, but with better temporal precision. It provides more input device options, superior graphics and a new real-time closed-loop programming model. Because NIMH MonkeyLogic requires no commercial toolbox and has a reduced hardware requirement, implementation costs are substantially reduced. ConclusionNIMH MonkeyLogic is a versatile, powerful, up-to-date tool for controlling a wide range of experiments. It is freely available from https://monkeylogic.nimh.nih.gov/.