Introducing the brain: rat brain develops concepts (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, November 03, 2023, 17:56 (384 days ago) @ David Turell

Traveling a virtual route from memory:

https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/can-rats-imagine-rodents-show-signs-of...

"Rats may be capable of a type of imagination that's crucial for route planning, research from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) suggests. Although the creative arts spring to mind when we think of imagination, the ability also plays roles in everyday tasks, like navigating our environment. People constantly imagine the route they will take to get to places, whether it's a routine commute to work or a trip to an unfamiliar location.

"This type of imagination is controlled by the hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning and memory. People with a damaged hippocampus struggle to imagine scenarios, including future routes, co-lead study author Chongxi Lai, a research specialist at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus in Virginia, told Live Science. Until now, scientists couldn't determine whether other animals, such as rats, possess this form of imagination.

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'The team implanted electrodes into the rats' brains to measure their hippocampal activity. They then immersed them in a VR world by putting them in an arena surrounded by a 360-degree screen that displayed a virtual environment. The rats were placed on a spherical treadmill that allowed them to rotate freely and view the entire panorama.

"The researchers then trained the rats to run toward a virtual goalpost to receive a treat. The treadmill's movements updated the rat's position in the virtual environment. After several rounds, each with the same goalpost at a random location, the rats had explored the whole landscape.

"For each set of coordinates in the virtual environment, the electrodes detected a specific pattern of activity in the hippocampus. The team hypothesized that rats could recreate those patterns if they imagined following a route along those coordinates, rather than actually running the route.

"So, they set up a game where rats only had to think about moving toward a goalpost; the virtual environment jumped to coordinates based on the electrode readings instead of treadmill movements. Named after a 2008 movie about teleportation, this "Jumper" game showed that rats planned efficient routes to the goalpost without meandering and regardless of how they physically moved.

"Lastly, the researchers tested whether the rats could imagine moving an object toward the goalpost, rather than themselves.

"Nicknamed the "Jedi" game, this required the rats to "use the Force" to move a virtual box toward the goalpost. The rodents' success showed that they could harness their mental maps to think about navigating an object through their environment, without moving themselves.

"Lai noted that scientists already knew about patterns of hippocampal activity that correspond to environmental locations in humans and rats. "But it hasn't been shown that animals can control it" until now.

"Similar to humans, the rats took only a few seconds to plan routes, suggesting this form of imagination may be similar between these species. "I could see the same experiment being run in human subjects and producing similar results, which by itself gets at the potential similarity," Kay said."

Comment: planning route is not a simple concept. I'm sure wild rats do it all the time in order to survive. This result is just confirmation.