PiVR: An affordable and versatile closed-loop platform to study unrestrained sensorimotor behavior
Friday, September 3, 2021
07:00 UTC
David Tadres and Matthieu Louis
University of California, Santa Barbara
Recording
Open recording
Hosted by Open Source Neuro70 minutes
Abstract
PiVR is a system that allows experimenters to immerse small animals into virtual realities. The system tracks the position of the animal and presents light stimulation according to predefined rules, thus creating a virtual landscape in which the animal can behave. By using optogenetics, we have used PiVR to present fruit fly larvae with virtual olfactory realities, adult fruit flies with a virtual gustatory reality and zebrafish larvae with a virtual light gradient. PiVR operates at high temporal resolution (70Hz) with low latencies (<30 milliseconds) while being affordable (<US$500) and easy to build (<6 hours). Through extensive documentation (www.PiVR.org), this tool was designed to be accessible to a wide public, from high school students to professional researchers studying systems neuroscience in academia.
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