Manual entry & importing tables

Not every assay is scored from video, and not every lab scores video in RodentFlow. Values scored by hand or by another program can be entered or imported. They become the same kind of result as a tracked video and appear together with tracked results in the Groups tab.

Entering values by hand

Choose the assay in the New experiment card and tap Enter Values (Enter Trials for the two-armed bandit). The form has three parts:

1. Animal: subject ID, group, sex, and phase, day or trial where the assay uses them.
2. Measurements: the raw values for this assay. Required fields are marked, and the app lists what is still missing.
3. Result: the derived metrics, recomputed as you type. For example, discrimination index from novel and familiar times, or sucrose preference from bottle weights.

Some assays take rows, such as one row per trial, per day, per CS or per stride. Add rows with the button below the table; the app computes the per-animal values from all rows.

Assay	What you enter	What the app derives
Open field	Total distance, center time, test duration, center entries, latency	Center %, mean speed
Elevated plus maze	Open- and closed-arm time (required), center time, entries, distance	Open-arm time %, open-entry %, total entries
Light–dark box	Light time and test duration (required), transitions, latency to dark	Dark time, light time %
Marble burying	Marbles in cage, number buried (≥ 2/3 covered), partially buried, duration	% buried
Sucrose preference	Per day: bottle weights at start and end for sucrose and water, leak controls, hours. Optional body weight.	Preference (pooled and mean daily), intake per day and per kg
Y-maze	The arm sequence, e.g. ABCABACB	Entries, alternations, alternation %
T-maze	First choice (left/right), arm entries, choice latency	Right-choice %, total entries
Novel object recognition	Novel and familiar exploration time, bouts, exclusion criterion	Discrimination index, recognition index, low-exploration flag
Morris water maze	Per trial: escape latency, path length, swim speed. Probe: target and opposite quadrant %, crossings.	Mean of trials, % trials with platform found
Barnes maze	Per trial: primary latency, primary and total errors, path length. Probe: target quadrant %	Mean of trials
Fear conditioning	Session and baseline freezing %. Per CS: freezing during and after the CS.	Mean CS freezing, freezing per CS
Beam walking	Per trial: traversal time, foot slips, fell (yes/no). Beam label and width.	Mean time, slips per trial, % falls
Gait analysis	Per stride: side, hind and fore stride length, base width, paw overlap. Optional run duration and distance.	Means, hind-stride CV, left–right asymmetry, cadence, speed
Conditioned place preference	Paired and unpaired chamber time (required), neutral time, paired entries	Preference score (paired − unpaired), paired %
Two-armed bandit	Per trial: choice, rewarded, optional reward probabilities and reaction time	Win-stay, lose-shift, switch rate, high-value choices, Q-learning fit

Definitions of every metric are on the assay pages. A saved manual result can be changed later with Edit Values on its result screen.

Importing a table

Tap Import Table in the New experiment card. In the import sheet:

1. Choose the Assay the table belongs to.
2. Optionally type a Group for rows without a group column.
3. Choose File (CSV, TSV, JSON).
4. Read the preview, then tap Import.

CSV Template for … creates an empty CSV with the column names this assay expects. Fill it in a spreadsheet program and import it.

Excel and Numbers files

.xlsx and .numbers files cannot be read directly. Export the sheet as CSV first (File › Export or Save As › CSV).

Which table layouts work

The app recognizes four layouts automatically.

1. One row per animal, one column per metric. This is the most common layout.

Mouse ID,Genotype,Sex,Total distance (m),Center time (%),Center entries
WT01,WT,M,28.83,19.0,17
KO01,KO,F,22.10,12.4,11

2. Raw measurements, the same fields as in manual entry. One row per animal, or one row per trial, day or stride when the assay uses rows. The app computes the metrics exactly as in manual entry.

subject,group,day,sucrose_start,sucrose_end,water_start,water_end,sucrose_leak,water_leak
Con01,Control,1,185.63,180.55,193.44,193.29,0.1,0.1
Con01,Control,2,180.26,175.23,192.09,191.94,0.1,0.1

3. Long format: one row per animal and metric, with a metric (or measure, variable, parameter) column and a value (or result, score) column.

subject,group,metric,value
V01,Vehicle,novel_time_s,23.5
V01,Vehicle,familiar_time_s,16.4

4. Trial-by-trial bandit data with choice and reward columns, plus optional p_left, p_right and rt. Choices may be written L/R, left/right or 0/1.

JSON files exported from RodentFlow, as a single result or a list, are imported as they are and keep their own assay. A 1.0 summary.json is converted too.

How columns are matched

Column names are compared without regard to case, spaces or punctuation. Total distance (m), total_distance_m and distance_m all match the same metric.

Information	Accepted column names
Animal	subject, subject_id, mouse, mouse_id, animal, animal_id, id, rat, name, 编号, 动物编号, 小鼠编号 …
Group	group, condition, genotype, treatment, cohort, 组别, 分组, 处理, 基因型
Sex	sex, gender, 性别. Values M/F, male/female, ♂/♀, 雄/雌.
Day	day, session_day, 天, 天数
Trial	trial, trial_number, run, 试次
Phase	phase, stage, session, test, block, 阶段. Values such as probe, acquisition, pre-test and 探索测试 are mapped to the app's phases.
Date	date, experiment_date, test_date, 日期, 实验日期
Notes	notes, comment, 备注
Metrics	The metric key, the metric name, or the name with its unit, in English. When the app runs in Chinese, the Chinese names shown in the app work too, e.g. 总距离 (m).

Other numeric columns are kept as custom metrics under their own names, so nothing is lost. They can be analyzed in the Groups tab like any other measure.

Numbers and missing values

• Comma, semicolon and tab separators are detected from the header line.
• In semicolon-separated files, a decimal comma (12,5) is read as 12.5.
• Empty cells and NA, NaN, N/A, -, null count as missing.
• yes/no and true/false are read as 1/0, and a trailing % is ignored.
• Files are read as UTF-8, with a fallback to Windows encoding for older exports.

The import preview

Before anything is saved, the preview shows:

• Format: which layout was recognized;
• Records, Animals and Groups counted;
• Recognized columns: each column and the metric or field it was matched to;
• Ignored columns: text columns that matched nothing;
• warnings, for example a missing group column;
• First records: the first few results as they will be saved.

If a column was not recognized, rename it in the file to the metric name shown in the app, or use the CSV template.

Sample files

Synthetic example tables for trying the import are listed on the Quick start page.