What makes this apparatus unique is its ability to allow for completely free and untethered movement while travelling in virtual space. This means that our subjects retain important aspects of free movement, such as naturalistic accelerations and joint movements. These sensations, relayed to the brain as optic flow, vestibular, motor and proprioceptive inputs, are self motion cues used in computation of path integration.
We have constructed an updated version of this apparatus in our lab at UBC, and are using it to investigate how place cells respond to information encoded in non-spatial, task-relevant reference frames. Our rats will be manipulating virtual cues by travelling in physical space, leading to representations that can encode physical or virtual spaces, or a combination of both.