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As such, they have been employed across different species, and by a diverse range of research groups. Unfortunately, designing and implementing behavioral tasks in such environments often proves complicated. To tackle this challenge, we created DomeVR, an immersive VR environment built using Unreal Engine 4 (UE4). UE4 is a powerful game engine supporting photo-realistic graphics and containing a visual scripting language designed for use by non-programmers. As a result, virtual environments are easily created using drag-and-drop elements. DomeVR aims to make these features accessible to neuroscience experiments. This includes a logging and synchronization system to solve timing uncertainties inherent in UE4; an interactive GUI for scientists to observe subjects during experiments and adjust task parameters on the fly, and a dome projection system for full task immersion in non-human subjects. These key features are modular and can easily be added individually into other UE4 projects. Finally, we present proof-of-principle data highlighting the functionality of DomeVR in three different species: human, macaque and mouse.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0308848","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,16]],"date-time":"2025-01-16T18:27:33Z","timestamp":1737052053000},"page":"e0308848","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["DomeVR: Immersive virtual reality for primates and rodents"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8618-5779","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Katharine A.","family":"Shapcott","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6148-3518","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Marvin","family":"Weigand","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mina","family":"Glukhova","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Martha N.","family":"Havenith","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Marieke L.","family":"Sch\u00f6lvinck","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,1,16]]},"reference":[{"issue":"10","key":"pone.0308848.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"R482","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cub.2022.03.031","article-title":"Natural behavior is the language of the brain","volume":"32","author":"CT Miller","year":"2022","journal-title":"Curr Biol"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0308848.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"25","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuron.2019.09.017","article-title":"The Life of Behavior","volume":"104","author":"A Gomez-Marin","year":"2019","journal-title":"Neuron"},{"issue":"7266","key":"pone.0308848.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"941","DOI":"10.1038\/nature08499","article-title":"Intracellular dynamics of hippocampal place cells during virtual navigation","volume":"461","author":"CD Harvey","year":"2009","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"5365","key":"pone.0308848.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"921","DOI":"10.1126\/science.280.5365.921","article-title":"Knowing where and getting there: a human navigation network","volume":"280","author":"EA Maguire","year":"1998","journal-title":"Science"},{"issue":"6427","key":"pone.0308848.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"635","DOI":"10.1126\/science.aav5404","article-title":"Schema cells in the macaque hippocampus","volume":"363","author":"P Baraduc","year":"2019","journal-title":"Science"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0308848.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"325","DOI":"10.1038\/nn.3340","article-title":"Cellular mechanisms of spatial navigation in the medial entorhinal cortex","volume":"16","author":"C Schmidt-Hieber","year":"2013","journal-title":"Nat Neurosci"},{"issue":"5","key":"pone.0308848.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"875","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuron.2012.06.037","article-title":"Attentional stimulus selection through selective synchronization between monkey visual areas","volume":"75","author":"CA Bosman","year":"2012","journal-title":"Neuron"},{"key":"pone.0308848.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"116683","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuroimage.2020.116683","article-title":"Exploring brain-behavior relationships in the N-back task","volume":"212","author":"B Lamichhane","year":"2020","journal-title":"Neuroimage"},{"issue":"31","key":"pone.0308848.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6991","DOI":"10.1523\/JNEUROSCI.1422-04.2004","article-title":"Natural stimulus statistics alter the receptive field structure of v1 neurons","volume":"24","author":"SV David","year":"2004","journal-title":"J Neurosci"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0308848.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"457","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuron.2014.09.010","article-title":"Experience-dependent specialization of receptive field surround for selective coding of natural scenes","volume":"84","author":"M Pecka","year":"2014","journal-title":"Neuron"},{"key":"pone.0308848.ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"ix","DOI":"10.1016\/j.conb.2014.02.001","article-title":"The receptive field is dead. 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