philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Scientists use VR to discover rats have imaginations just like humans

... The scientists discovered that, like us, rats can think about places and objects that aren’t immediately in front of them – by using their imaginations.

The rodents were even found in tests to be able to use their minds to move objects in their virtual realities – much like Jedis in the Star Wars franchise.

The innovative research serves as proof that the minds of rats – and most likely other animals, too – harbor imaginations like ours. ...

This ability to imagine locations elsewhere from our current positions is crucial to recalling past events and imagining future possible scenarios. ...

The system uses a brain-machine interface – or BMI – which provides a direct connection between brain activity and an external device.

This BMI produces a connection between the electrical activity in the rat’s hippocampus – a complex brain structure embedded deep into the temporal lobe – and its position in a 360-degree virtual reality arena. ...

The researcher’s BMI allows them to test whether a rat can activate hippocampal activity to merely think about a location in the arena without physically going there – essentially, to assess whether the animal is able to imagine going to the location. ...

See the full story here: https://www.fox41yakima.com/scientists-use-vr-to-discover-rats-have-imaginations-just-like-humans/