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Experiments

Overview​

Experiments define the conditions under which the simulated rat operates.

The experiment configuration determines factors such as the simulation settings, behavioural characteristics, environmental stimuli and treatment conditions.

The project is being developed so that users can configure experiments through the application interface rather than manually editing JSON files.

Experiment Configuration​

An experiment can contain configuration for:

  • Simulation settings
  • Random seed
  • Arena settings
  • Rat characteristics
  • Behaviour preset
  • Environmental stimuli
  • Stimulus schedules
  • Treatment conditions
  • Treatment dose
  • Treatment administration timing

Behaviour Presets​

The simulated rat supports three behavioural presets.

Explorer​

The Explorer preset represents a rat with a stronger tendency to explore the environment.

Balanced​

The Balanced preset represents an intermediate behavioural strategy.

Shelter Seeker​

The Shelter Seeker preset represents a rat with a stronger preference for shelter and safer areas.

Environmental Stimuli​

The experiment can contain configurable:

  • Light sources
  • Odour sources
  • Sound sources

Stimuli can have configurable properties such as:

  • Position
  • Range
  • Intensity

Stimuli can also be scheduled to activate at specific simulation steps.

This allows controlled environmental changes to be introduced during an experiment.

Treatment Conditions​

Experiments can use one of three treatment conditions:

  • No treatment
  • Placebo
  • Medicine

Treatment settings can include:

  • Treatment type
  • Dose
  • Administration timing

Treatment events are recorded so that they can later be correlated with behavioural data.

Experiment Workflow​

A typical experiment follows:

Create / Select Experiment
          ↓
Configure Rat
          ↓
Configure Environment
          ↓
Configure Stimuli
          ↓
Configure Treatment
          ↓
Set Random Seed
          ↓
Run Experiment
          ↓
Record Results
          ↓
Export Results

Reproducibility​

To reproduce an experiment, the same experiment configuration and random seed should be used.

The simulation's deterministic design ensures that repeated runs with the same relevant settings produce consistent results.

AI Attribution: The preceding document was generated and edited with assistance from ChatGPT Web (GPT-5.6 Luna).