Force Poke to OUT in the state matrix

Gregorio

Hi,

I am trying to use a photogate connected to the Emitter/Sensor of the port interface board to detect the presence of the hand of a head-fixed mouse in a "start position". The goal is to force the mouse to hold its hand for 2 seconds in a "start position" in order to trigger a water drop delivery, similar to a nose poke event in a 2AFC task. The problem is that in my experiments, mice are head fixed and tend to hold the hand in the "start position" throughout the intertrial period. This makes it impossible to detect the presence of the hand, because there is no change from Low to High.
I was wondering if it is possible to momentarily "reset" the PortIn signal to create a fake PortOut followed by a PortIn ?

Cheers

Gregorio

Josh

Hello Gregorio,

This would be a perfect use case for the state machine's Condition feature. You'd set a condition to return an event if the photogate is blocked on entering a state. You'd handle the resulting event with a state change. This example demonstrates its usage.

-Josh

Gregorio

Great! Thanks!

Gregorio