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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?"
I'd be interested to see what would happen if they provided some kind of negative feedback to the mouse when a player shot it, and then just let them run rampant in there. I'd imagine mice would have a far better reaction rate then people in it.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
This is a great example of open source really helping humanity learn new and interesting things.
It's great to see that the tools provided by open software can really help speed up research.
I wonder what would happen if old versions of adobe photoshop, 3ds max, or cubase were left to open source for research purposes. What kind of discoveries would scientists make with programs like these?
Hmm, yeah, and they should train the mouse to fire the gun by rewarding it – first, make it find a target and operate the "gun firing" switch (whatever that is). Then train it to find a person and target them and "fire". Finally, put it up against armed opponents, give negative feedback if the mouse gets shot, and see what happens. Will the mouse go for positive feedback (by shooting opponents), will it hide/flee from the opponents (to escape the negative feedback it learns to associate with being shot by them), or will it be intelligent enough to create a new self-defense mechanism whereby it learns that by shooting the opponents before they can shoot it, it can both avoid the negative feedback and at the same time get positive feedback?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I suspect learning to use the in-game offense/defense mechanisms would tax the mouse's brain far beyond its capacity already without adding the complexity of choosing between different weapons.
Although that does make me think of another interesting thing. Mice are more of a foraging creature... they look for food and hide from predators, fighting back only when cornered. A FPS, on the other hand, lends itself to predatory tactics... seeking your prey and killing them without being killed by their defensive tactics. Is it even possible for a mouse to learn to exhibit predatory behavior using a reward system, if their prey tendencies to flee or hide are being simultaneously triggered as their target fights back? If a bunch of mice were put into such a simulation, would they all hide from each other? Would they actively seek and kill each other? Or would there be some of both, where some mice tended to behave in a predatory manner (aggressive personalities?) while others hid (passive/survival)?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Care to volunteer for open brain surgery instead?