Development of a pneumo-tactile vibrissae stimulator for freely behaving rodents

Abstract

Studying rodent behavior within virtual worlds and their interaction with them is a fairly new field of research. While virtual reality is able to visually present an unlimited variety of worlds to the animal with ease, physical stimulation often remains unsatisfactory and is usually difficult to achieve. Rodents such as rats mainly experience their environment using their whiskers. Though, electrical stimulation using subcortical electrode implants have been successfully used for sensory stimulation, the underlying principles are still poorly understood. One possible and less invasive alternative method is physical stimulation of the whiskers using puffs of air with the added benefit of avoiding the overall risks of brain surgery for intracranial microstimulation.