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MIT Researchers Explore How Rats Think

Posted by Zonk on from the i-think-backwards-all-the-time dept.

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."

3 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Rats suffer from Slashdotism by Centurix · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Not only do they think in dupes, but they get to see the dupes in reverse and twice the speed!

    --
    Task Mangler
  2. I could have saved them alot of trouble.... by canning · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Oh okay gotta turn left,gotta turn left ..... nope maybe it was right, yep right it was right ..... this looks familiar. Ok two lefts now and then a another right ..... oh yeah, now i can smell it. Just a little bit further .... a quarter turn left followed by a hard 180 degree right .... I can totally taste it now!! Here i come .... just a few more turns and that sweet reward is mine!!

    I don't even care that this is the fourth time this morning, this never gets old. I wouldn't mind a glass of milk though, could someone hook a brother up???

    --
    I love the smell of Karma in the morning
  3. How Rats think... by digitaldc · · Score: 0, Redundant

    1) Find cheese
    2) Eat
    3) Reproduce
    4) Find burrow and Sleep
    5) Return to procedure 1)

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson