Rigbox: An Open-Source Toolbox for Probing Neurons and Behavior

Setting up an experiment in behavioral neuroscience is a complex process that is often managed with ad hoc solutions. To streamline this process, we developed Rigbox, a high-performance, open-source software tool-box that facilitates a modular approach to designing experiments (https://github.com/cortex-lab/Rigbox). Rigbox simplifies hardware input-output, time aligns datastreams from multiple sources, communicates with remote databases, and implements visual and auditory stimuli presentation. Its main submodule, Signals, allows intuitive programming of behavioral tasks. Here we illustrate its function with the following two interactive examples: a human psychophysics experiment, and the game of Pong. We give an overview of running experiments in Rigbox, provide benchmarks, and conclude with a discussion on the extensibility of the software and comparisons with similar toolboxes. Rigbox runs in MATLAB, with Java components to handle network communication, and a C library to boost performance.