Mind-reading could be one step closer thanks to the results of a new study involving rats.
Scientists were able to predict where a rodent would go next just by observing which neurons were firing in the hippocampus, the study revealed.
Using this information scientists created 'brain maps', which allowed them to visualise the decisions being made.
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Scientists were able to tell where a rat would go next, just by observing which neurons were firing in the hippocampus (stock image)
'This gives us an insight into what the animal is thinking about space,' said Jozsef Csicsvari at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria who was co-author of the study published in the journal Neuron.
'We used this concept to understand how rats think during tasks that test their spatial memory', he said.
In the experiments, rats navigated through a maze with eight arms.
Three arms contained food rewards.
The rats revisited the maze so that they formed memories of where the rewards were hidden.
This task teases apart two different forms of spatial memory: reference and working memory.
Reference memory is the memory that allows a rat to remember which arms contain rewards, and which arms don't.
Working memory is the memory that keeps track of which arms the rat hasn't been to yet and which ones it has already visited, so that the rat doesn't make unnecessary trips.
The researchers can test pure working memory by modifying the experiment so that only arms that contain rewards are open, or pure reference memory by closing off arms that have been visited already.
At the centre of the maze, before the rat enters the next arm, the sequence of place cells fire in the rat's brain.
This corresponds either to the route the rat took in the last arm it visited, or to the arm it is going to run down next.
In tasks testing reference memory, the sequence corresponds to the next maze arm the rat will visit.
This gives researchers a glimpse into the rat's immediate plans.
'The animal is thinking about a different place than the one it is in. In fact, we can predict which arm the rat will enter next,' Dr Csicsvari explains.
Not only can the researchers predict where the rat will go next, they also know when the rat will make a mistake.
'When the rat makes a mistake, it replays a random route', said Dr Csicsvari.
'Based on the place cells, we can predict that the rat will make a mistake before it commits it.'
Reference memory is the memory that allows a rat to remember which arms contain rewards, and which arms don't. Working memory is the memory that keeps track of which arms the rat hasn't been to yet (artist's impression)
The researchers hypothesise that the brain uses different strategies to solve reference and working memory tasks.
'With reference memory, the brain truly navigates and remembers that 'this is a location I have to go to'', said Dr Csicsvari.
'Working memory is more abstract, each location is an item on the animal's list of places to visit.
'The hippocampus probably signals to the prefrontal cortex where the rat was, and the prefrontal cortex keeps track of which items it can tick off.'
The new research was based on previous work by John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser.
The team won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2014 for working out the relationship between the hippocampus and spatial location.
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2018/12/05/mind-reading-is-one-step-closer-scientists-have-created-brain-maps-in-rats/
Main photo article Mind-reading could be one step closer thanks to the results of a new study involving rats.
Scientists were able to predict where a rodent would go next just by observing which neurons were firing in the hippocampus, the study revealed.
Using this information scientists created ‘brain...
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Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
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