What is the Delta Maze?

The Delta Maze is a sophisticated motorized T-maze variant engineered specifically for behavioral experiments with tethered or cabled animals. Its defining innovation is a system of below-floor sliding doors on each arm — instead of conventional upright barriers that block the camera view and can entangle implanted cables, the doors retract silently beneath the maze floor. This provides an unobstructed top-down view throughout the entire trial, enabling clean video tracking, and eliminates the physical impediment posed by standard doors when animals carry fiber optic cannulae, EEG headstages, or other implants. The modular design allows custom configurations to suit specific experimental requirements.

Key Features

• Below-Floor Sliding Doors: Each arm features a motorized door that slides silently under the maze floor rather than upward — providing complete overhead visibility of the entire maze at all times, with no door shadows or obstructions appearing in tracking video.
• Individual Arm Motors: Each of the three arms (start, left, right) has an independent motor, allowing asymmetric door protocols (e.g., blocking one choice arm while releasing the other) for sample-then-choice spatial working memory tasks.
• TTL and USB/PC Control: All doors can be operated manually via front panel, or automatically via TTL inputs or USB-connected PC software, enabling precise synchronization with electrophysiology systems, optogenetic stimulators, and video-tracking software.
• Silent Operation: The low-noise motor and floor-level sliding mechanism produce negligible sound, preventing auditory startle artifacts during the choice period that would confound spatial decision-making measurements.
• Modular Proprietary System: The Delta Maze is part of a proprietary modular maze platform that can be configured into custom layouts beyond the standard T design, enabling novel spatial paradigms.