Humans aren’t the only ones diving into the world of virtual reality—our tiny rodent friends are getting in on the action too. Researchers have introduced a new technology that lets mice explore VR in a much more exciting and realistic way, and it’s as adorable as you’d imagine.
The clever folks over at Cornell University came up with this innovation, calling it MouseGoggles. As they tested this tech on mice, the little critters responded vigorously to virtual stimuli while wearing the goggles, making this development a promising tool for scientists conducting VR animal studies.
As amusing as the thought of mice in virtual reality might be, there are genuine scientific benefits to this technology. Ideally, VR can help create lifelike environments for mice under more controlled settings. Currently, the common VR setups are somewhat clumsy; they’re designed by placing mice on a treadmill encircled by screens, which don’t completely cover their field of vision. As a result, it often takes a while for the mice to even acknowledge the VR environment, if at all.
The team at Cornell believes their MouseGoggles offer a big improvement over existing setups. Instead of building a tiny VR headset from the ground up, they ingeniously assembled their gear using small, cost-effective components from smartwatches and similar devices. Just like traditional VR systems, mice are positioned on a treadmill while using MouseGoggles, with their heads secured in place to receive visual input.
Matthew Isaacson, the lead scientist and a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell, shared with the Cornell Chronicle, “We embraced a hacker mindset—utilizing parts designed for other purposes and adapting them to our needs. Interestingly, the ideal screen size for a mouse’s VR headset is almost exactly what smartwatches already have. We were fortunate to source affordable, ready-made components without starting from scratch.”
To test their system’s effectiveness, the researchers exposed the mice to different stimuli while tracking their brain activity and observing their behavior. The tests revealed that the mice seemed to genuinely perceive and react to the VR scenarios as intended. In one case, the scientists observed how mice responded to an approaching dark spot, simulating a predator.
“In older VR setups with large screens, the mice showed no reaction,” Isaacson noted. “But with the goggles, almost every mouse demonstrated a startled jump, like they were encountering a real predator.”
The team published their exciting findings earlier this month in the journal Nature Methods. These advancements in VR for mice could lead to numerous benefits for future research. More accurate VR experiments could significantly help scientists map and study brain activity in mice, especially those engineered to mimic Alzheimer’s, focusing on areas related to navigation and memory. It could also enhance foundational research on potential brain disorder treatments.
Isaacson and his team aren’t the only ones crafting VR systems for mice. However, their setup is the first to incorporate eye and pupil tracking. They’re already working on a portable, lightweight VR setup suitable for larger rodents such as rats or tree shrews, and they’re eager to add more features like simulating taste and smell in future versions.
