ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Behaviour > Zones > Setting up a zone > Zone type
Zone type
In brief
ANY-maze supports three zone types:
| Standard zones | A standard zone is most easily thought of as not a hidden or investigation zone. Most zones such as the arms of a plusmaze or the platform in a water-maze are standard zones. |
| Hidden zones | A hidden zone is a zone where ANY-maze can't actually see the animal, for example a nest box or a tunnel which connects two chambers. |
| Investigation zones | An investigation zone is typically used for things like the objects in a Novel Object Recognition test. |
Details
You must specify a zone's type. By default ANY-maze will assume a zone is a standard zone.
Standard zones
A standard zone is simply defined by selecting any combination of areas of the apparatus map. ANY-maze will report a wide range of measures for the zone, including such things as the time in the zone, the distance travelled in the zone, the latency to enter the zone, etc.
Standard zones can be moveable that is to say they can adopt different positions in different tests, for example, the platform in a water-maze, or a reward arm in a radial arm maze.
Hidden zones
If your apparatus includes areas where the camera can't see the animal - a tunnel or nest box, for example - then you can include them as hidden zones in your protocol. When it can't see the animal, the system will assume it's in one of these zones.
ANY-maze reports most of the same measures for a hidden zone as it reports for a standard zone, except for measures which require that it actually tracks the animal within the zone, such as speed or distance travelled in the zone.
 | In order to use hidden zones, the tracking must be quite good (i.e. ANY-maze must be able to find the animal in most of the frames) because the software assumes that when it can't find the animal, it's hidden. This usually won't be an issue unless you're using apparatus with very low contrast and/or strong reflections. |
Investigation zones
An investigation zone is used to define a part of the apparatus that you expect the animal to investigate, typically by moving its head to be close to the zone. A classic example of investigation zones are the Known and Novel objects in the Novel Object Recognition test.
In ANY-maze, 'investigation' of a zone can be defined to include any combination of the following:
| • | The animal is within a certain distance of the zone - for example 2cm. |
| • | The animal is oriented towards the zone. |
| • | The animal is not actually in the zone (for example, it has not climbed onto an object). |
You can choose which of these criteria to apply, so it might be that you do want to consider the animal to be investigating the zone if it is inside it.
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ANY-maze help topic T0320