Es1 free field electrostatic speaker

The speaker used in this study was an ES1 Free Field Electrostatic Speaker driven by an ED1 Electrostatic Speaker Driver manufactured by Tucker-Davis Technologies (TDT Inc, USA). The sound pressure level (SPL) of pure tones and white noise was calibrated using a 1/4" pressure prepolarized condenser microphone system (377A01 microphone +426B03 preamplifier +480E09 signal conditioner, PCB Piezotronics Inc, USA). The signals were sampled at 1 MHz by a high-speed DAQ board PCI-6251 from National Instruments and our customized Labview program was use for calibration.

Head-fixed experiments were conducted inside individual sound booths (Otometrics; Schaumburg, IL). Mice ran on a cylindrical treadmill while fixed to the head-post. Rewards were dispensed through a lick spout (blunt-tip 19G 1.5” needle) placed slightly anterior to the mice via a programmable syringe pump (model NE-500; New Era Pump Systems, Inc.). Licks were detected via an electrical sensor (Janelia) connected to the spout. Auditory stimuli played through a speaker (ES-1 Free Field Electrostatic Speaker; Tucker-Davis Technologies) mounted on the left side of the animal. Speakers were calibrated routinely throughout the duration of the study.
Behavioral logic and data acquisition were managed through custom LabVIEW software. Analog outputs from the sound waveform, lick detector, and syringe pump were simultaneously recorded to a DAQ (National Instruments). Treadmill position and velocity was recorded from an encoder (Model 15T Accu-Coder) attached to the treadmill.