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Scientists Use Quake 2 To Study the Brains of Mice
An anonymous reader writes "In this week's issue of Nature, scientists from Princeton University trained mice to navigate around a virtual environment using a setup that resembles a combination of a giant trackball and a mini-iMax theater displaying a virtual world rendered using a modified version of the Quake 2 open source game engine. (Here's the academic paper, subscription required.) They hold the mouse's head still atop a giant trackball, which the mouse turns by running. The scientists use the rotations to move the mouse around in the virtual environment, and when he reaches certain places, he gets a reward. Because they are able to hold the head still, they can stick microscopic glass electrodes into individual neurons in the hippocampus of this mouse as it 'navigates.' They find the neural activity that resembles activity during real life navigation, and learned new things about the inputs and computations that are going on inside these neurons, which weren't known before. No word as of yet whether the scientists plan on giving the mice control of the gun. Wonder whether John Carmack ever envisioned this when he opened up the Quake code?"
Yo dawg, I heard you liked mice, so I put a mouse on your mouse.
God spoke to me.
If only we could do this with gamers who need exercise. They get a better immersive experience AND get fit at the same time.
OK, so the open-brain surgery thing is going to be controversial, but...
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
If I ever get fragged by a mouse, I hope no one ever tells me.
Catching mice that get in my house is enough of a pain, but now I have to snag the bastards while they're rocket jumping? Thanks, jerks.
Beats a console controller any day, even lab scientists agree
They initially tried this study using managers, but there was no evidence that the managers were learning anthing or that they even perceived their environment
They need to hook it up to the device that gave mice orgasms at the push of a button, so that one frag is one orgasm. And then let them loose in quakelive.
"Are you pondering what I am pondering, Pinky?"
"I think so Brain, but how can I bunny-hop over the lava when I'm a mouse?"
www.eFax.com are spammers
The researchers originally wanted to use Half-Life instead of Quake 2, but they could never get the mice to do anything in the game other than murdering the scientists.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
Just thought I'd point out that
despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I wondered why the last arena I logged in to had the quad damage replaced by a wheel of cheese, and why the rocket pickups were shaped like little smudges of peanut butter.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Pinky! Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
If it was virtual cheese they were after, they'd need look no farther than these jokes, I think.
Um... Squeak?
The enemies of Democracy are
There's no way this would fly with animal rights. So it'd probably have to be done in China... prompting the question, which rodent is most efficient at gold farming? My bet would be on squirrels.
Seriously, what did they really learn from this?
They learned about brain structure and relationships between cognition and motor control.
You may not think that's worth it, but we've done a lot worse to mice than non-lethal brain surgery in order to learn a lot less.
I wouldn't let anyone involved in this kind of experiment date my sister.
*puts down bouquet of flowers, scalpel, and bundle of electrodes*
Man, you're no fun.
The enemies of Democracy are