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Record W4414258212 · doi:10.1101/2025.09.11.673547

RetINaBox: A hands-on learning tool for experimental neuroscience

2025· preprint· en· W4414258212 on OpenAlexaff
Flavia Arias Armas, Erica Cianfarano, Vanessa Bordonaro, Megan Liu, Matthew Loukine, Mingyu Wan, Aude Villemain, Blake A. Richards, Stuart Trenholm

Bibliographic record

VenuebioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
TopicCell Image Analysis Techniques
Canadian institutionsMila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence InstituteCanadian Institute for Advanced ResearchMcGill UniversityMontreal Neurological Institute and Hospital
Fundersnot available
KeywordsFeature (linguistics)Systems neuroscienceOrientation (vector space)SoftwareNeuromorphic engineeringSIGNAL (programming language)Component (thermodynamics)

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Abstract An exciting aspect of neuroscience is developing and testing hypotheses via experimentation. However, due to logistical and financial hurdles, the experiment and discovery component of neuroscience is generally lacking in classroom and outreach settings. To address this issue, here we introduce RetINaBox: a low-cost open-source electronic visual system simulator that provides users with a hands-on tool to discover how the visual system builds feature detectors. RetINaBox features an LED array for generating visual stimuli and a photodiode array that acts as a mosaic of model photoreceptors. Custom software on a Raspberry Pi computer reads out responses from model photoreceptors and allows users to control the polarity and delay of the signal transfer from model photoreceptors to model retinal ganglion cells. Interactive lesson plans are provided, guiding users to discover different types of visual feature detectors—including ON/OFF, center-surround, orientation selective, and direction selective receptive fields—as well as their underlying circuit computations.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.003
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.010
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Not applicable · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Software · Consensus signal: none
Teacher disagreement score0.128
Threshold uncertainty score0.429

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0030.010
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0020.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.000
Science and technology studies0.0000.001
Scholarly communication0.0020.002
Open science0.0050.003
Research integrity0.0010.002
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.1280.029

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.010
GPT teacher head0.260
Teacher spread0.250 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designNot applicable
Domainnot available
GenreSoftware

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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