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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?"
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?
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.