The Surprising Imagination of Mice: Research Reveals Their Ability to Imagine Fictional Journeys

KOMPAS.com – Imagination is one of the most complex and miraculous functions of the human brain. Surprisingly, new research shows that humans are not the only species with the ability to imagine.

According to research results, small mice apparently have the capacity to imagine fictional journeys, namely traveling to places that do not exist in their minds.

The mouse’s imagination surprised researchers

Like humans, mice have neurons known as “place cells” in a region of the brain, called the hippocampus, which is the center of memory and imagination.

As the mice moved, these cells fired in ever-changing configurations, representing their environment at any given moment.

In the human hippocampus, the activation patterns of place cells are remembered and stored as “cognitive maps.”

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These maps can be recalled and retraced in our imagination at any time, allowing us to “travel” to distant locations without moving.

So, might mice have the same ability to traverse their cognitive maps?

Researchers created a Brain-Machine Interface (BMI) that can decode the “firing” patterns of hippocampal cells in animals.

To do this, the study placed mice on a spherical treadmill, and translated their movements into 360-degree virtual reality displayed on a screen.

As the mice attempted to navigate this virtual reality in search of rewards, the decoder was able to decipher how hippocampal patterns were translated into movement through the environment.

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With a sufficiently trained BMI, the researchers deactivated the treadmill so the mice could carry out their virtual journey, without moving their bodies.

After demonstrating their ability to move through a virtual environment using only their imagination, the mice were then challenged to pick up and move an object within the mental field.

Once again, the rodents had no difficulty imagining themselves moving the object.

Researcher Albert Lee said that imagining is one of the extraordinary things humans can do.

Now, researchers are finding that animals can do the same thing, and researchers have figured out how to study it.

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The surprising result of all this is that mice appear to have the same precise control over their hippocampal activity as humans.

When navigating their imaginary environment, mice are able to maintain certain patterns of neural activity for several seconds, allowing them to maintain their thoughts in a specific location for a realistic period of time.

According to researcher Timothy Harris, the amazing thing is how mice can learn to think about that place, and not another place.

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2023-11-03 05:30:00
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