AssetID: 53294168
Headline: RAW VIDEO: Scientists Create VR Goggles For Mice To Simulate Owl Attacks
Caption: Researchers at Northwestern University have developed virtual reality (VR) goggles tailored for mice to simulate bird attacks. The unique goggles enable more accurate simulation of natural environments, overcoming challenges associated with traditional setups using screens surrounding the mice. In laboratory settings, observing real-time brain activity in animals engaging with the actual world is inherently complex. To address this difficulty, VR has been integrated into experimental setups. Typically, animals use a treadmill to navigate virtual mazes projected onto surrounding screens, allowing neurobiologists to study brain activity as the animal traverses the virtual space, aiding the understanding of neural circuitry and information encoding during various behaviours. Over the past 15 years, VR systems for mice have involved large screens surrounding the animal. Daniel Dombeck, senior author of the study and a neurobiology professor at Northwestern University, highlighted the limitations of these setups for mice, likening it to humans watching a TV in their living room. “For the past 15 years, we have been using VR systems for mice,” said Dombeck. “So far, labs have been using big computer or projection screens to surround an animal. For humans, this is like watching a TV in your living room. You still see your couch and your walls. There are cues around you, telling you that you aren’t inside the scene. Now think about putting on VR goggles, like Oculus Rift, that take up your full vision. You don’t see anything but the projected scene, and a different scene is projected into each eye to create depth information. That’s been missing for mice.” To address these limitations, the researchers introduced Miniature Rodent Stereo Illumination VR (iMRSIV), consisting of custom-designed lenses and miniature organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. The system includes two lenses and screens, one for each side of the mouse's head, providing a 180-degree field-of-view that fully immerses the mouse and excludes the surrounding environment. Unlike human VR goggles, the iMRSIV system does not wrap around the mouse's head but is attached to the experimental setup directly in front of the mouse's face, covering its field of view while running on a treadmill. The researchers found that mice wearing the iMRSIV goggles exhibited brain activation patterns similar to freely moving animals. In comparisons with traditional VR systems, goggle-wearing mice engaged with the scene more rapidly, reducing training times significantly. The iMRSIV goggles were then used to simulate an overhead threat, an accomplishment not feasible with existing systems due to hardware limitations. The researchers projected a dark, expanding disk into the top of the goggles, mimicking the top of the mice's fields of view. In response, the mice either ran faster or froze, common reactions to overhead threats. Neural activity was recorded, allowing detailed study of these reactions. Looking ahead, the researchers aim to explore situations where mice act as predators rather than prey, observing brain activity during activities such as chasing a fly. This involves capturing depth perception and estimating distances, aspects that the iMRSIV system can potentially address. Besides advancing research capabilities, Dombeck envisions the iMRSIV goggles making neurobiology research more accessible. Their relatively low cost and reduced laboratory setup requirements could facilitate broader adoption in research labs compared to traditional, complex VR systems. “Traditional VR systems are pretty complicated,” Dombeck noted. “They’re expensive, and they’re big. They require a big lab with a lot of space. And, on top of that, if it takes a long time to train a mouse to do a task, that limits how many experiments you can do. We’re still working on improvements, but our goggles are small, relatively cheap and pretty user friendly as well. This could make VR technology more available to other labs.”
Keywords: mice,vr,science,technology,offbeat,feature
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