MouseGoggles offer immersive look into neural activity

Read the full story by David Nutt in the Cornell Chronicle.

Thanks to their genetic makeup, their ability to navigate mazes and their willingness to work for cheese, mice have long been a go-to model for behavioral and neurological studies.

In recent years, they have entered a new arena – virtual reality – and now Cornell researchers have built miniature VR headsets to immerse them more deeply in it.

The team’s MouseGoggles – yes, they look as cute as they sound – were created using low-cost, off-the-shelf components, such as smartwatch displays and tiny lenses, and offer visual stimulation over a wide field of view while tracking the mouse’s eye movements and changes in pupil size.

The technology has the potential to help reveal the neural activity that informs spatial navigation and memory function, giving researchers new insights into disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and its potential treatments.