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Tuesday, October 06, 2020

Simulating Animals to Track Behavior

Quite interesting. Perhaps to use as a means of controlling blights?    Or as a means to discover new kinds of biomimicry.

Fruit Flies Plug into the Matrix  Scientific American   By Sophie Bushwick; Macarena Carrizosa

 University of California, Santa Barbara researchers have developed a low-cost system called PiVR, after the Raspberry Pi computer that runs its software, to generate virtual reality (VR) environments for small animals like fruit flies. PiVR allows real-time analysis of animal behavior with cameras and other sensors, as it responds to a controlled environment. Light stimulates the animal by brightening or dimming based on where it goes, with sensors tracking its reactions so investigators can examine how organisms use visual stimuli to navigate. Scientists can use PiVR to hack an animal's brain so it interprets light as a different type of sensory stimulus by putting light-sensitive proteins into its neurons. Harvard Medical School's Alexandra Moore said, "The flexibility and the affordability of the system—it's open source, it's written in a very easy programming language—can help students understand ... advanced concepts like 'How does spatial navigation work?'

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