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. 2017 Oct 30;8:1196. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-01371-0

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© The Author(s) 2017

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Fig. 2 — Automated self-latching. Top-left panel shows a 3D rendering of the latching mechanism (details of the components and how they are assembled are provided in Supplementary Fig. 3). Panels 1–5 (circled numbers) show the sequence of steps leading to self-head fixation: (1) the head-plate (black bar on mouse head, Supplementary Fig. 1) is progressively restrained by narrowing rails (gray converging lines, Supplementary Fig. 3). (2) The forward motion of the head-plate mechanically lifts up the first pair of latching pins. (3, 4) The first pair of pins then lowers by gravity, and the continued forward motion of the animal similarly lifts up and down the second pair of latching pins, leading to the final self-head fixation (4). During 3, 4, small tilt and forward movements are allowed that reduce the probability of a “panic” response due to a sudden head fixation. (5) When the task session ends, a computer-controlled servo motor actuator lifts up both pairs of latching pins and releases the animal (Supplementary Fig. 4). Original technical drawings edited with permission from O’ Hara & Co., Ltd.