Overview
Mice navigate complex visual scenes with remarkable robustness, often outperforming artificial agents when visibility is degraded. The Mouse vs AI: Robust Foraging competition and workshop challenge the AI community to close this gap. Participants train agents in the same Unity-based VR task used for mouse experiments, testing both behavioral robustness under perturbations and neural alignment to recorded mouse visual cortex activity.
This NeurIPS workshop brings together researchers from reinforcement learning, computer vision, and systems neuroscience to explore how robust perception emerges and how artificial and biological systems can inform one another.
Logistics
Due to visa issues and travel constraints, the workshop will be held primarily on Zoom, but livestreamed in Upper Level Ballroom 6CF.
For updates and discussion, join our Discord or email us at robustforaging@gmail.com.
Please note: This is an official NeurIPS 2025 event, so conference registration is required to attend.
Keynote Speakers
University of Göttingen
Towards Foundation Models of Mouse Vision
UC Santa Barbara
The Algebra of Spatial Navigation
University of Oregon
Neural Coding for Active Vision in Freely Moving Mice
Schedule
| Time (PST) | Session | Speaker / Topic |
|---|---|---|
| 11:00 - 11:30 | Mouse vs AI Challenge | The Competition: Goal, Tracks, Evaluation (Marius Schneider) The Mouse: Task & Setup (Joe Canzano) The AI: Winners, Model Analysis (Yuchen Hou) |
| 11:30 - 12:00 | Keynote Talk | Nina Miolane: The Algebra of Spatial Navigation - A Group Theoretic Perspective on Path Integration and the Emergence of Grid Cells |
| 12:00 - 12:30 | Keynote Talk | Fabian Sinz: Towards Foundation Models of Mouse Vision |
| 12:30 - 12:45 | Team HCMUS_TheFangs | Phạm Phú Hòa (Ho Chi Minh City University of Science) |
| 12:45 - 1:00 | Team sazeglio | Simone Azeglio (Sorbonne University & École Normale Supérieure) |
| 1:00 - 1:30 | Keynote Talk | Cris Niell: Neural Coding for Active Vision in Freely Moving Mice |
| 1:30 - 1:40 | Team alluding123 | Anjali Deepu (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur) |
| 1:40 - 1:50 | Team pingsheng-li | Pingsheng Li (McGill University) |
| 1:50 - 1:55 | Closing Remarks | Marius Schneider |