• Question: How do you get mice to play computer games??

    Asked by Imogen@Flamingo to MarthaNari on 17 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Martha Havenith

      Martha Havenith answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      Hiya,
      here’s a little description I wrote to an earlier question:
      /lutetiumj15-zone/2015/06/12/how-did-you-teach-a-mice-how-to-do-it-and-i-would-like-to-see-a-picture-of-thatx/

      Basically you have to start simple, and use something they do naturally (in this case, run around to search for food). Except in this case we put them on top of a ball treadmill, so that they move around in a virtual environment instead of a real one. Here’s a cool video from a group that uses almost the same technique as we do:

      They very quickly get the idea though that ‘when I run through the stripey thing I find a drop of soy milk’. And from that point on you can start making things slowly more complicated (make the targets move around, add ‘bad’ targets etc.)

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