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Acoustic Startle Analyzer

Paste or enter startle trials, separate pulse-alone from no-stim and prepulse trials, then export animal-level ASR and habituation results.

Pulse AmplitudeHabituation SlopeCSV Export
AnimalGroupTrial 1Trial 2Trial 3Trial 4Trial 5Trial 6

Format: animal,group,type,amp. Types are pulse, noStim, or prepulse.

Animal summary

AnimalGroupMean pulseNo-stim baselineHabituation slope
M1vehicle201.256.000.000
M2vehicle195.005.000.000
M3drug147.004.000.000

Pulse-alone startle

Habituation slope

  • Summarize pulse-alone acoustic startle amplitude per animal
  • Track no-stim movement baseline alongside startle amplitude
  • Compute a simple habituation slope across pulse-alone trial blocks
  • Compare groups with mean and SEM charts
  • Export animal-level ASR results for Prism, R, or Python

Don't use for

  • Percent prepulse inhibition as the primary endpoint
  • Raw waveform peak detection from high-frequency acquisition files
  • Human eyeblink EMG startle workflows

Resources

  • Speaker calibrated at animal position
  • Background level documented
  • No-stim trials included
  • Restraint tube fit checked
  • Trial order randomized or pseudorandomized
  • Inter-trial interval documented
  • Testing time balanced across groups

What Is Acoustic Startle?

Acoustic startle is a short-latency defensive reflex evoked by an abrupt high-intensity sound. Rodent startle platforms convert the animal response into a peak force, acceleration, or voltage value. The pulse-alone trials give a direct readout of startle magnitude before any prepulse inhibition calculation.

This analyzer keeps the raw startle workflow separate from PPI. It reports pulse-alone amplitude, no-stim baseline, and habituation slope so labs can see whether group differences are sensory, motor, baseline, or session-dynamics effects.

Metrics and Math

For each animal, the tool averages only pulse-alone trials for mean startle amplitude. No-stim trials are averaged separately as the movement baseline. Prepulse trials are ignored for the raw pulse-alone mean.

Habituation slope is computed by grouping pulse-alone trials into fixed-size blocks, averaging each block, and fitting a linear slope across block index. Group summaries use animal-level values and report mean +/- SEM.

Best Practices

Use pseudorandom trial order, keep inter-trial intervals consistent with the protocol, and include no-stim trials throughout the session. Calibrate speakers with the microphone at animal height and check platform response before each study series.

Analyze pulse-alone startle and habituation before interpreting PPI. A group with low baseline startle may show unreliable percent PPI because the denominator is compressed.

Frequently Asked Questions

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