Aeon: an open-source platform to study the neural basis of ethological behaviours over naturalistic timescales

Ethological behaviours are a powerful tool for neuroscience since they leverage the robust neural computations shaped by the species' evolution to study the neural basis of high-level cognitive functions. However, such behaviours are often transitory and dependent on factors that vary over space, time and number of individuals, making them difficult to capture with standard laboratory tasks. Here we present Aeon, an open-source platform designed for continuous, long-term study of self-guided behaviours in multiple mice and simultaneous recording of brain activity within large customizable habitats. By integrating specialized modules for navigation, nesting and sleeping, escaping, foraging, and social interaction, Aeon enables the expression of key ethological behaviours while achieving experimental control and multi-dimensional quantifications from sub-milliseconds to month-long durations. Its software architecture ensures robust data acquisition via many synchronized data streams and seamless analysis pipelines that delivers a new standardised and unified data format. Using tasks such as digging-to-threshold and social foraging, Aeon reveals how mice adapt strategies in a changing environment and in response to conspecifics. This approach therefore bridges ecological relevance with rigorous experimental control to advance our understanding of how neural circuit activity give rises to a range of highly conserved and adaptive behaviours.