Virtual Reality – Jet Ball

The Virtual Reality – Jet Ball is a novel virtual reality experimental system. It is based on an air supported spherical treadmill. It allows a body restrained rodent (mouse, rat) to navigate in virtual space. Virtual reality provides a perfectly controllable experimental environment. It can be used for investigating navigation, cognition, learning and memory. Awake, head-restrained animals can be examined with electro- or opto-physiological methods while the animal performs complex behaviours.

A large range of brain circuits can be stimulated through multi-modal stimulation. The available sensory modalities include visual, acoustic, tactile and olfactory stimuli. Reinforcement feedback can be given through positive (sugar water) or negative (air puff) reinforcement. Operant behaviour and emotional responses can be examined. Animals can be head-restrained for physiological approaches or kept in a body-harness for a larger degree of freedom of movement.

• Virtual reality navigation
• Transcranial two-photon laser scanning microscopy in live mice
• Intracellular dynamics during virtual navigation
• Electro- and opto-physiological methods
• Operant conditioning
• Learning and memory processes

• 200 mm ball for mice, 300 mm ball for rats
• Custom programmed VR scene and operant schedule with each order
• Visual stimulation with proximal and 3D distal visual cues
• Acoustic stimulation with multi-speaker system for 3D-sound
• Olfactory stimulation with multiple odours for 2D-odour landscape
• Whisker stimulation for somatosensory sensation

• Compact size
• Turn-key virtual reality and operant conditioning system
• Infinite number of experimental paradigms created by software
• Custom virtual reality scenes available
• Multi-modal stimulation
• Positive and negative reinforcement
• Fully automated

• Third party custom micromanipulators available
• Sensory stimulation: acoustic, tactile, olfactory