It's a study of mouse brains, so they have a surgically implanted brain titanium head plate that both allow for the display and head to be fixed together, and also for monitoring the brain during the experiments.
So no, it's not some fun mouse toy. But they do monitor for signs of distress.
E.g. the goal is to have as normal mouse behavior as possible, while tightly controlling the visua scenario and monitoring the brain. Mice interact with the virtual world (and earn rewards) by licking at virtual targets.
It replaces an earlier system that used panoramic displays, not googles.
I was at a neuro conference last week where some folks chatted about the prospect of "factory neuroscience" with 100s of animals in order to satisfy the data cravings of large machine learning models & make log(n) improvements in performance. Maybe we ought to think about that one a bit more...
I would love it if you could find a clip of any of that! Between issues with making people feel forced to publish often & with statistically interesting results (see link for an example), and the financial/investor driven pressures on research direction (like your example)... I'm a bit worried.
The rat is being fed a VR view of Doom so it sees walls and passages. It run as if navigating the maze, but since it's on a ball/treadmill, it's not physically moving even though it thinks it is.
Comments
So no, it's not some fun mouse toy. But they do monitor for signs of distress.
It replaces an earlier system that used panoramic displays, not googles.
look at him go :3
imagine having your head locked to a contraption like this not understanding what the hell is happening. 🫨
This rat: I'm about to end this human's entire career...
https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2023/12/immersive-vr-goggles-for-mice-unlock-new-potential-for-brain-science/
https://youtu.be/doQvWsJRCPs