Tricking Rats With Augmented Reality Unlocked a Secret About Our Own Brains
Ever wondered why you feel a little funny when you step off a treadmill?
By Kat Eschner
Ever gotten off a treadmill or a moving sidewalk in an airport and had the unnerving feeling that the whole world was moving at a different pace? It isn’t, but new research from scientists at Johns Hopkins University offers detail about what is actually happening in rats — and in us.
Rats and humans both have a hippocampus, the region of the brain that deals with memory and with navigation. Some neurons in this area of the brain, known as “place cells,” light up when a human or a rat returns to a location it recognizes. These place cells fire at a certain location known as the “firing field.” What causes firing field formation still isn’t fully understood, but this new research sheds some light on the matter.
Getting these answers took some quirky experiment design. Researchers constructed a dome with a circular table within, where they could project images of “landmarks.” Then they added rats and monitored their hippocampus function in real-time, to see which neurons lit up when.
“There are three landmarks projected, and the rat is running around in a circle,” says study Manu…
