Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience recently published a study where researchers showed that rats could learn about a certain location without physically exploring the surroundings. All they need to do is watch another rat.
Researcher Proves Rat Can Explore Location Just By Watching Another Rat
Dr. Thomas Doublet of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology said, "We wanted to understand whether or not a spatial representation could be acquired remotely. This is important to understand how spatial representations can be generated and stabilized."
The researchers created a two-part cage with an inner and an outer cage. An observer rat was placed in the inner cage. This rat could only learn where a food reward was by observing a demonstrator rat placed in the outer cage. An observational training was implemented. After this training, the observer rat was allowed to explore the outer cage and find the reward.
Rats that had to find the reward without any prior observational training were referred to as naïve rats, and their performance was compared.
Based on the result, the observer rats outperformed their counterpart. The observer rats' superior performance is 100% success versus 12% success compared to the naive rats. Using this result, the researchers conclude that rats may learn about a physical place and can locate a reward site without prior physical exploration. They can do it simply by viewing another rat.
To see if there would be changes in the rats' performance, the researchers also administered CPP. It is a receptor antagonist that hinders stabilizing a newly generated hippocampal representation of a region, yet it does not disrupt an already formed one. Based on the result, the observational task was unaffected by the injection of CPP. It indicated that either the observed space was stabilized by observation alone or that performance on spatial tasks does not require a stable place cell representation.
According to Doublet, the study demonstrates that the cognitive representation of a space produced by observation is stable and may be used by the animals to navigate the observed space more effectively. With the help of this study, the researcher said that they could learn more about how the brain interprets the actions of conspecifics and how our internal GPS functions.
He added that the study did not explain the stable representation or how it was generated. Whether we use the same neurons to self-experience and to represent observed remains to be discovered.
Cognitive Maps in Rats
The creation of cognitive maps helps both humans and animals navigate through distances and confined areas.
The Normal Nielsen Group defines a cognitive map as a visual representation of a person's mental model for a given concept or process. It has no visual rules that a person must obey.
It is still unclear how these cognitive maps are controlled and whether the direct experience of a space is required. This includes whether these cognitive maps can be produced in spaces that are just viewed.
Because of the vagueness of how cognitive maps work, the experiment was initiated. The researchers chose the rats for the experiment because they are a great species to examine the cognitive brain maps and have well-documented navigational skills. According to the American Psychological Association, their brains only produce a stable place cell map of an uncharted location after firsthand exploration.
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