MIT Researchers Explore How Rats Think

Ant writes "A Nature News article explains that, after running a maze, rats mentally replay their actions backwards." From the article: "As the rats ran along the track, the nerve cells fired in a very specific sequence. This is not surprising, because certain cells in this region are known to be triggered when an animal passes through a particular spot in a space. But the researchers were taken aback by what they saw when the rats were resting. Then, the same brain cells replayed the sequence of electrical firing over and over, but in reverse and speeded up. 'It's absolutely original; no one has ever seen this before at all,' says Edvard Moser, who studies memory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim."

Comments

the learning possibilities

[TubeSteak]

The discovery could also help to explain why people tend to learn a new task quicker when they take short rests between each practice round. It suggests that eliminating such breaks could actually interfere with learning, and perhaps even explain why hyperactive children often have learning difficulties.

This may be less about ADD/ADHD kids than about teaching style in general.

Any teaching style that will appeal to a hyperactive child, will more than likely be engaging for a 'normal' student.

Though it might be a stretch to suggest this could be extended to understanding hyperactive kids. AFAIK, they usually have abnormally low levels of dopamine and/or seratonin in their brains, while the article posits that "The rerun [for mice] could coincide with a burst of the reward chemical dopamine, which is released in the brain when the animal finds food."

Maybe they can find some hyperactive mice to run the tests on?

I suspect they will find the same true for people

[icecow]

Haven't most people walked through the halls of a unfamiliar building to their destination then stopped and reviewed how to get back out a few times (a movie in reverse sorta) in order to get it in their long term memory? or is it just me? I don't always do it, just when the path seemed complicated. I'd think doing this would be much more important to a mouse considering they have rival creatures towering over them like downtown buildings.

Whoa, I'm reading back my post and thinking WTF!