Research reveals that rats remember the paths they take and return to them when they feel the need

Rats possess the capacity for cognitive thinking, enough to be reminiscent of the pop culture phrase ‘Thinking Out Loud.’ Research has uncovered that rats retain memories of the paths they traverse and can retrace them when the need arises.

 

In precise terms, rats can mentally navigate their way in and out of places, suggesting the existence of a form of imagination that can be activated through memory recollection.

 

Chongxi Lai, the primary author of the study conducted at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus, noted that this research is groundbreaking, as it demonstrates that animals can engage their brains to recall locations removed from their current physical state.

 

This phenomenon serves as a foundational element of a specific type of imagination, one that allows us to project ourselves into past or future scenarios. Lai, as reported by The Guardian, stated, “This is a fundamental building block of a specific type of imagination, one that enables us to project ourselves into the past or future, within a certain scenario.”

 

The mechanism of memory recall in both rats and humans centers around a region of the brain known as the hippocampus, which serves as a mental model or map of explored environments. As individuals traverse specific locations within these environments, distinct neurons in the brain are activated.

 

Humans, in contrast to rats, possess the ability to voluntarily engage their imagination, enabling them to mentally navigate through previously visited places, such as finding their way home or to a hostel.

 

To ascertain the rats’ ability to remember, researchers monitored the real-time activity in the rats’ hippocampus during a scientifically-induced task. The results unequivocally demonstrated that rats could mentally retrace a path they had explored previously, relying solely on their brain activity, thus confirming their capacity for imagination.