In a recent groundbreaking study conducted by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus, researchers discovered that rats can make use of their power of imagination to navigate and move objects in a virtual reality landscape. The researchers used high-tech devices tracking brain activity that oversee how rats manoeuvre through a VR environment. For the first time, scientists have been able to demonstrate that even rats possess the ability to imagine and manipulate objects in their minds. In their attempt to determine whether other animals are capable of imagination and spatial navigation, the researchers focused on the hippocampus, the brain region storing memories and playing a key role in navigation.
The study published in the Science Journal involved training rats to navigate a VR maze. As reported by Inverse in “Scientists Put Rats in Virtual Reality and Found They are Capable of Imagination,” the scientists surgically implanted a specifically curated brain-machine interface into the heads of four rats, the electrodes deep into the hippocampus, to record neural activity. The rats were placed on a spherical treadmill surrounded by screens displaying the virtual maze. The findings indicated that the rats were able to navigate through the maze by controlling their speed on the treadmill and direction of gaze. For each test, the researchers recorded the spatial neurons that were activated when the rats moved to specific areas, to be able to decipher the mental map created by their hippocampus. They then tested the rats’ cognitive mapping skills by fixing them atop the treadmill and constraining their free movement.
The rats were then given two tasks, which the scientists referred to as “Jumper and Jedi”. In the Jumper task (named after a 2008 movie on teleportation), the rats were made to mentally navigate themselves to a goal location. They were made to visualise the steps taken to reach their reward since their movement was controlled by the spatial neurons that were activated. In the case of Jedi, the rats had to mentally move an external object toward the designated reward position. Here, the rats weren’t allowed any free range of movement since they were fixed in a single spot. The rats were flexibly able to control their hippocampal activity and mirror the way humans do. The rats completed both tasks successfully, validating the existence of their ability to think ahead by visualisation of locations and external objects that are not in their immediate surroundings.
While more research is indisputably required on this front to get a more well-rounded idea of what rat imagination looks like, this research is significant since it determines that the cognitive abilities of rats are more sophisticated than previously thought, and proven. Additionally, it also raises the possibility that other animals that aren’t human, like primates and dolphins, may be capable of thinking ahead. The researchers also believe that their findings may have implications for the further development of VR technologies. For instance, virtual reality simulations could be used to help people with disabilities control high-level operations by merely thinking about the locations they want things to move.
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