Dizziness (Zero Maze)

A behavioral assay is your lab's specific implementation of a behavioral paradigm. While paradigms describe the shared conceptual task (e.g., "Elevated Plus Exploration"), an assay captures how your lab actually runs it — the specific protocol, parameters, and setup type used.

How It Fits Together

BrainSTEM organizes behavioral experiments through a hierarchy that separates shared scientific knowledge from lab-specific implementation details:

• Behavioral Category — The broad domain (e.g., "Anxiety & Affect" → "Anxiety")
• Behavioral Paradigm — The standardized task shared across the field (e.g., "Elevated Plus Exploration")
• Behavioral Assay (this page) — Your lab's specific implementation of a paradigm under a specific preparation condition, linking a paradigm to a setup type (e.g., "EPM 5-min test")
• Behavior — The actual execution of an assay within a session, tied to specific subjects and a physical setup

Categories and paradigms are shared taxonomies available to everyone. Assays are lab-specific — they belong to your groups and capture exactly how you run a paradigm.

Example

Fields

• Name: A descriptive name for this assay, ideally indicating the paradigm and key protocol details (e.g., "EPM 5-min test") (required).
• Setup type: The preparation condition under which this assay is run — a setup type encodes both the physiological state of the subject (e.g., Freely Moving Awake) and the class of apparatus (e.g., "Elevated Plus Maze"). This constrains which physical setups can be used when recording a behavior (required).
• Behavioral paradigm: The shared paradigm this assay implements (required).
• Description: Protocol details — trial structure, timing, parameters, and any lab-specific variations.
• Authenticated groups: Assign one or more groups during the creation process. Assigned groups will have change permissions. You can adjust permissions later on the "Manage permissions" page (required).
• Public access: Determines if the assay is publicly available or accessible only through the private portal.

Permissions

Behavioral assays have four permission levels: membership (read access), change permissions, managers, and owners. You manage permissions through the management tab. For more information on permissions, please see the documentation.

API Access

The API allows for programmable access to behavioral assays, enabling you to read, edit, and delete assays through the API. For details about the fields and data structure, refer to the documentation.