Rodent behavioural data and Matlab codes for repeated textured Novel Object Recognition tests (tNORTs)

This study designed repeated tNORTs to investigate whisker sensitivity of rodents. It consisted of 2 sets of tests. (1) Object shape bias tests (OSBTs). (2) tNORTs. Eight rats were used throughout the study.

The OSBTs were conducted in 8 days (Test day 1 ~ day 8) using 8 different objects (Object I ~ Object VIII). Each test involved 2 objects of the same shape placed in an arena (positioned at Left and Right).

After OSBTs, rats performed five tNORTs (Test 1 ~ Test 5), with different grit-size sandpapers used for each test. The stopping criterion was when rats failed to discriminate different textures in two tests with finer grit sizes. Each tNORT consisted of a sample phase with two objects (L and R) covered by the same sandpaper, and a test phase with two objects covered by the same sandpaper (F) and a novel sandpaper (N).

The behaviour of the rat was recorded via a video camera for all tests. The video was analysed using ‘The Observer XT’ from Noldus to find rat exploration times (in seconds) of the Left and the Right objects, or the Familiar and Novel objects.

Matlab code used to analyse the data are included with the dataset.

Two video files from a tNORT experiment of the sample and test phases, respectively, are also included with the dataset.

本研究设计了重复式纹理新奇物体识别任务（tNORT），旨在探究啮齿动物的触须触觉敏感性。本研究包含两类测试：(1) 物体形状偏好测试（Object Shape Bias Tests, OSBTs）；(2) tNORT测试。全程共使用8只大鼠作为实验对象。
物体形状偏好测试共开展8天（第1测试日至第8测试日），采用8种不同物体（物体I至物体VIII）。每项测试均在行为测试箱内放置两个形状完全一致的物体，分别置于左侧与右侧位置。
完成物体形状偏好测试后，大鼠依次完成5次tNORT测试（测试1至测试5），每项测试使用不同粒度的砂纸。实验终止判据为：当大鼠在两次使用更细粒度砂纸的测试中均无法区分不同纹理时，实验终止。
单次tNORT包含两个实验阶段：样本阶段与测试阶段。样本阶段中，测试箱内的两个物体（左侧L与右侧R）均覆盖相同粒度的砂纸；测试阶段中，两个物体分别覆盖与样本阶段一致的砂纸（记为F）与全新粒度的砂纸（记为N）。
所有测试均通过摄像机录制大鼠的行为活动，后续采用Noldus公司推出的《The Observer XT》行为分析软件对视频进行处理，提取大鼠对左侧/右侧物体，或熟悉/新奇物体的探索时长（单位：秒）。
本数据集附带用于数据分析的Matlab代码。此外，还包含两段分别对应tNORT测试样本阶段与测试阶段的实验视频文件。