Rats Have an Imagination, New Research Finds

Researchers at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus have found that rats posses an imagination. Phys.Org reports: A team from the Lee and Harris labs developed a novel system combining virtual reality and a brain-machine interface to probe a rat's inner thoughts. They found that, like humans, animals can think about places and objects that aren't right in front of them, using their thoughts to imagine walking to a location or moving a remote object to a specific spot. Like humans, when rodents experience places and events, specific neural activity patterns are activated in the hippocampus, an area of the brain responsible for spatial memory. The new study finds rats can voluntarily generate these same activity patterns and do so to recall remote locations distant from their current position.

This ability to imagine locations away from one's current position is fundamental to remembering past events and imagining possible future scenarios. Therefore, the new work shows that animals, like humans, possess a form of imagination, according to the study's authors. [...] The team found that rats can precisely and flexibly control their hippocampal activity, in the same way humans likely do. The animals are also able to sustain this hippocampal activity, holding their thoughts on a given location for many seconds -- a timeframe similar to the one at which humans relive past events or imagine new scenarios.

"The stunning thing is how rats learn to think about that place, and no other place, for a very long period of time, based on our, perhaps naive, notion of the attention span of a rat," Harris says. The research also shows that BMI can be used to probe hippocampal activity, providing a novel system for studying this important brain region. Because BMI is increasingly used in prosthetics, this new work also opens up the possibility of designing novel prosthetic devices based on the same principles, according to the authors. The study has been published in the journal Science.

Rats are sweet creatures. Much love.

[MIPSPro]

I have had about 25 rats over the course of my long life. I started with a pet-store full sized fancy rat who had 9 pups. I didn't know she was pregnant when I got her. I felt like "Well, if you're my rat, you're babies are now part of the family too." All of her pups lived and they all grew into amazing little creatures. Each one had their own personality. Some were bold, some were senstive, some were kind, some were jokers. They are such smart creatures. If you haven't owned them, it's hard to give you the proper impression of their intelligence. Once you start to be able to read their mannerisms and body language, they are very communicative, though they mostly communicate with each other in the ultrasonic range. They don't deserve the hate they get, in general. Yes, rats can be vermin and pests. However, they are mostly such sweet animals. I had one, named Muppet, who did tricks. She could stand up using a hand command and later learned to twirl in a circle. While she was roaming around outside in my backyard (her normal spot was a 6-foot cage with her sisters and mom) you could see when she was happy by the way she'd sort of "skip" and bound around in the grass. Rats love to play and wrestle, too. I could have told you they have imagination, because they dream up schemes! You can almost see the wheels turning as they come up with another cute set of antics. I'm sad & angry that people recently used rats in a protest (releasing them in a McDonalds) and spray painted them. That hurt and confused them. I wish I could have adopted those poor things.

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[rmdingler]

Thanks for your interesting perspective.

It may well be that mankind's mental superiority over other creatures is not quite as wide a chasm as we've been taught.

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[_merlin]

I like watching wild rats. The young ones playing in piles of Autumn leaves are particularly cute.

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[jenningsthecat]

Thanks for the heart-warming story. I came here to say that "of course they have imagination - just look at Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison". I now realize the profound insult and disservice I was delivering to the rodents in TFS and in your fond memories - my apologies!

Rats carry disease

[OrangeTide]

Rats are disease vectors. They carry harmful diseases into your home not unlike human children.

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[TwistedGreen]

I think there's a huge difference between fancy rats and feral rats. That said, they are more human than most animals, in that they breed and destroy everything around them, so it does have a certain amount of hubris to have something you own destroyed by rats.

However, I've owned some fancy rats and they are cute, but they still piss and shit all over you. You've got to be a really disgusting person to put up with that, and I can't get it out of my mind that any rat fancier is going to be constantly covered

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[MIPSPro]

Only male rats pee on everything, a bit like dogs in that way. Females don't do that. They poop, like any animal, but I never had them poop or pee on me while playing or holding them. That's why I quit keeping rats, though. People get allergic to their urine very rapidly when exposed to it. That's one downside of keeping them, especially males.

Despite the ups and downs of having them as pets, they are still intelligent and can show and accept love. Nobody should be spray painting them. I'm not sure if it

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[Shakrai]

They don't deserve the hate they get, in general

Yes they do. Have you ever lived in New York City? Ever studied the Black Death?

Glad you love your pet rats, I love my pet Felis catus, but I'm not blind to the ecological disaster that her feral cousins perpetuate. Feral rats and cats should be exterminated on sight, no matter how cute and intelligent they might be. In the case of rats there's no better tool for the job than a well trained ratter, terrier or dachshund being the best.

I'm not gonna lie, I really enjoyed siccing my dachshund on feral rat

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[MIPSPro]

Wild rats can be pests and pests/vermin must be eliminated to prevent disease. I did acknowledge that, already. However, you basically responded to my "I love rats" with a "I love to kill them." I'm sure you're a real tough guy and a nice person who enjoys killing small animals. I just wish you could have said all this to me in person.

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[Shakrai]

I'm wasn't the one killing them, my dachshund was. Humans are ill equipped to catch rats. That's why we have our animal friends do it for us. I'm gonna wager you'd suddenly be okay with it after a few feral rats ran across your apartment floor. You ever sit in a rat infested building and listen to the little bastards scurrying about? It's one of the most disgusting things you can imagine.

No offense bro, I'm sure they're intelligent and in the right light cute, but I don't get it. I don't get people th

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[MIPSPro]

tl;dr My Maine Coon is way cooler than your rats

You're an animal abuser and obvious loser in general. I'm sorry you own any animal whatsoever. Poor cat.

and I'll say everything I just said to your face.

I'm sure you would. You sound like you are about 12-14 years old. I'd just hold your face while you tried to swing then ask your mom to come and get you.

Are you gonna punch me (assault) for my words?

No, you seem mentally ill and underage. It wouldn't be fair.

That won't end well for you.

YAWN . Yeah, I'm sure. You have lots of experience pulling the wings off flies and the Dunning-Kruger effect makes you think your some type of bad ass. Sounds about right.

Real tough guy on the keyboard though.

Okay, Mr. "That won't

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[Shakrai]

It's not animal abuse to kill vermin or other invasive species. It's not animal abuse to use domestic cats and dogs to accomplish those objectives. I challenge you to point to anything I said that qualifies as animal abuse or any other crime.

There are organized groups engaged in ratting with dogs in NYC with approval of the City Government. Google it. I was part of one of them when I lived there and two of our guys were NYPD officers. Humans have been using dogs and cats to control vermin since the in

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[MIPSPro]

Well, sleeping with your cat likely gave you Toxoplasmosis and that explains quite a bit. Have fun hanging out with cops.

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[Shakrai]

Hahaha you go from calling me an animal abuser to making fun of me for having an animal? Have you heard the expression "Pick a lane"?

I accept your tacit admission you were talking out your ass and I'm not a criminal.

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[MIPSPro]

Hahaha you go from calling me an animal abuser to making fun of me for having an animal?

This is a quote from you, earlier: "I'm not gonna lie, I really enjoyed siccing my dachshund on feral rats when I lived in NYC. She terminated them with extreme prejudice. It was glorious." So, yeah, I lament that you own any animal, since you don't seem to be mature enough to be able to handle the responsibility and your value system seems to lack empathy. As I said earlier you essentially responded to an "I love rats" post with "I love killing them." So, I think folks can judge for themselves what kind of

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[Shakrai]

To repeat, it is not "animal abuse" to exterminate invasive/pest animals, not morally or legally. Full stop. I guess it bothers you that I enjoyed watching my dog do what she was literally bred to do ? Would you find it more acceptable if someone dispassionately poisoned the feral rats? Is slowly bleeding to death internally more humane than having your neck snapped by a canine?

I enjoy watching my cat kill pests too. She's living her best life when she stalks some small critter and pounces on it. Th

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[MIPSPro]

To repeat

You're good at that. Did you ever consider that the reason people ignore much of what you say is that they don't care?

I guess it bothers you that I enjoyed watching my dog do what she was literally bred to do ?

That's correct. The fact that you enjoyed it made me think less of you, but certainly didn't "bother" me. Notice how I've never called you a criminal or said what you were doing was illegal, yet you brought up the cops for legitimacy, kept swearing what you were doing is legal, tried to change the subject, etc... You've been on your back foot the entire time. Why is that? Are you just poorly

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[Shakrai]

Did you ever consider that the reason people ignore much of what you say is that they don't care?

Do you keep replying because you're ignoring what I'm saying? :P

I already have. It seems you're still reeling with butthurt from it.

Hahaha, no, you'll know when I'm butthurt. Mostly I'm amused that I have so successfully trolled you (5 replies now!)

I'll give you the last word since I don't think you're going to be able to resist taking it. Have a good day with your little disease carrying friends. :-)

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[MIPSPro]

I'll give you the last word

I'll give you a fart in your general direction.

Hahaha, no, you'll know when I'm butthurt.

I do know. It's right now. Right here, this entire time. It's obvious && delicious.

Mostly I'm amused that I have so successfully trolled you (5 replies now!)

Whatever story works for you, I guess. You are, however, having a really hard time with turnabout, maybe you should have joined the debate team or something.

Have fun hanging out with cops and enjoying the pain and death of small animals. I'll be happy to slap you around in the next thread, too, whenever we cross paths again.

If TFS accurately reflacts TFA

[93 Escort Wagon]

Then this seems eerily similar to that old Slashdot meme.

1. Step A
2. Step B
3. ????
4. Profit!

There seem to be some very big logical leaps being taken there.

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[Tablizer]

Seriously though, I don't see a problem with eating rats because they are rats, but because they likely have picked up chemicals and poisons used by humans along their journey, being nosey scavengers.

Aphantasia

[quenda]

I have aphantasia, you insensitive clod. [wikipedia.org]
And you are telling me a rat can do that?

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[Tablizer]

Sorry to be frank, but a rat will soon replace you at your current job....if AI doesn't first.

how poetic

[retchdog]

Literature may call it "imagination."

I call it a self-hypnotic defect in the mammalian hippocampus.

Beowulf oblig

[Tablizer]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of lab-rats imagining a Beowulf cluster.

phys.org operator is an idiot

[HBI]

They've constructed their ad beg popup to interfere with cutting and pasting the URL of that article. Nifty. So you want funds so bad that you don't want people seeing your site.

underestimate the intelligence of many creatures

[berferdiam]

I once saw my cat baiting mice. She had realized that the mice liked the dog's food. I saw her go to the dogs food dish in another room, get a piece of kibble in her mouth, and carry it over in front of the pump room door. Then she scooted back out of view from the slit under the door, and got into pounce position!

There was so many advance things going on here, she had:
1) Correlated that the mice did (or might) like the dog's kibble.
2) Knew that it was more likely the mice would eat the kibble if it was clo

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[EvilSS]

Unfortunately, there are a lot of assumptions that became "facts" in biology when it comes to things like animal intelligence. Someone with letters behind their name made a statement long ago that ended up in writing and became accepted as fact without being backed up by any research or any well-designed research. So now that people are actually doing the work, we are finding out that those old ideas are wrong.

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[badboy_tw2002]

What are you talking about? There's at least 5 comments here already saying that this was already known, scientists are proving the obvious, the research was all done in the 80s and they didn't even bother reading it, etc etc. These scientists are wasting their time when they could just post to "Ask Slashdot"

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[HiThere]

You're understating the problem. B.F.Skinner wouldn't even accept that humans had internal thought processes, because he couldn't test them.

A lot of people are so fixated on words that no other kind of thought seems possible to them, when in fact most thinking happens without words. Then words are added to describe (parts of) the process. Look up adduction for one example of even formal logic not being verbal.

Remember that all human thought is based on a pre-verbal substrate, which never goes away. If y

Mice

[davidwr]

Dunno about rats, but mice [bbc.co.uk] certainly have an imagination.

"The whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front."

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[bugs2squash]

Mice sure do have free will - it wasn't me that clicked accept on the EULA

The New World is coming

[Miles_O'Toole]

"this new work also opens up the possibility of designing novel prosthetic devices..."

A mind-controlled flying dildo armed with HD camera and a payload. I shall be the first superhero. Politicians, business spokesmen, pompous jerks everywhere, beware the wrath of...The Splatternator!

neo-cortex

[Lobachevsky]

Wasn't the mammalian neo-cortex well known to be able to do that? The neo-cortex was supposed to allow mammals to envision scenarios in their heads and make predictions for things that were not immediately in front of them. As well as enter R.E.M. sleep.

Any pet owner will tell you their dog has dreams and is chasing squirrels in their R.E.M. state of sleep. Their paws move slightly in a running fashion, and they let out little quelps, like they're chasing something in the field.

Of course, there's a risk

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[avandesande]

You don't think intelligent birds like crows or goose can do this?

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[HiThere]

That they are chasing squirrels is reading too much into the actions. Dreaming of running is quite plausible, but really needs to be tested...somehow. (Well, the squirrels are also plausible for some dogs.)

The problem isn't exactly anthropomorphizing, but it is projections. You're making a plausible guess and stating it as a fact. Others have done the same throughout history. And often their guesses were self-serving.

Well

[zkiwi34]

I guess that explains/defines politicians

nonsense

[groobly]

You can't impute subjective ideas into objective findings. They should just stick to what they found, and not make ridiculous claims.

No Pinky references? Shocking

[Tablizer]

Pinky: "Gee Brain, what are we gonna do tonight?"

Brain: "The same thing we do every night, try to take over the world!"

Pinky: "Brilliant plan, Brain! Oh, no, wait. What if we want to use a plan that works?"

And other animals...

[Hoi Polloi]

I swear my cat is too smart for his own good. I was doing this thing were I'd run around the house (I can loop through the rooms in a circle) letting him chase a toy I was dragging. Well he would follow it for a few loops then realized I was just doing the same path and stopped and went back and waited for me to loop back around instead of chasing me. He ruined his own play time by being too clever. lol