A Virtual Reality Platform for Context-Dependent Cognitive Research in Rodents.
Xue-Tong Qu, Jin-Ni Wu, Yunqing Wen, Long Chen, Shi-Lei Lv, Li Liu, Li-Jie Zhan, Tian-Yi Liu, Hua He, Yu Liu, Chun Xu
Author Information
Xue-Tong Qu: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
Jin-Ni Wu: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
Yunqing Wen: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
Long Chen: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
Shi-Lei Lv: Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
Li Liu: Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
Li-Jie Zhan: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China.
Tian-Yi Liu: Department of Neurosurgery, Third Affiliated Hospital of Navy Military Medical University, Shanghai, 200438, China.
Hua He: Department of Neurosurgery, Third Affiliated Hospital of Navy Military Medical University, Shanghai, 200438, China. hehua1624@smmu.edu.cn.
Yu Liu: Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China. yu.liu@ia.ac.cn.
Chun Xu: Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031, China. chun.xu@ion.ac.cn. ORCID
Animal survival necessitates adaptive behaviors in volatile environmental contexts. Virtual reality (VR) technology is instrumental to study the neural mechanisms underlying behaviors modulated by environmental context by simulating the real world with maximized control of contextual elements. Yet current VR tools for rodents have limited flexibility and performance (e.g., frame rate) for context-dependent cognitive research. Here, we describe a high-performance VR platform with which to study contextual behaviors immersed in editable virtual contexts. This platform was assembled from modular hardware and custom-written software with flexibility and upgradability. Using this platform, we trained mice to perform context-dependent cognitive tasks with rules ranging from discrimination to delayed-sample-to-match while recording from thousands of hippocampal place cells. By precise manipulations of context elements, we found that the context recognition was intact with partial context elements, but impaired by exchanges of context elements. Collectively, our work establishes a configurable VR platform with which to investigate context-dependent cognition with large-scale neural recording.
