OCTAVie: Open-source Capture Technology for Animal Vocalization in ultrasonic range

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Bioacoustics
• Hardware Engineering

Background:

• Rodent ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are crucial for studying emotion, social behavior, and disease models.
• Existing commercial recording systems are costly and produce large datasets requiring extensive post-processing.
• There is a need for accessible, efficient tools for USV analysis in neuroscience.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present an open-hardware acquisition system for real-time ultrasonic vocalization (USV) sonogram computation and display.
• To reduce data storage requirements and analysis workload for rodent USV research.
• To provide a low-cost, modular, and reproducible platform for studying ultrasonic communication.

Main Methods:

• Designed an integrated acquisition chain: custom ultrasonic microphone (up to 100 kHz), analog front-end with filtering, FPGA for real-time FFT and power calculation, and a lightweight software interface.
• Openly released all design files (PCB layouts, VHDL, C software) to ensure reproducibility.
• Validated the system with synthetic signals and experimental recordings.

Main Results:

• The system computes and displays sonograms in near real-time, significantly reducing storage needs.
• Achieved over 50% reduction in raw data storage compared to traditional microcontroller-based systems.
• Maintained high frequency (∼0.39 kHz) and temporal (∼2.5 ms) resolutions, sufficient for analyzing 22 kHz and 50 kHz USVs.

Conclusions:

• The developed open-hardware platform offers a low-cost, modular, and transparent solution for rodent USV analysis.
• This system lowers the barrier to entry for neuroscientists studying ultrasonic communication.
• Facilitates efficient data handling and analysis, accelerating research in emotion, social behavior, and disease models.