‘Instant replay’ helps rats decide next moves
August 27th, 2009 - 3:27 pm ICT by IANSWashington, Aug 27 (IANS) Rats use an instant replay of their actions to help them decide what to do next, says a new study shedding new light on how animals and humans learn and remember which in turn can lead to new methods of treatment.
“By understanding how thoughts and memories are structured, we can gain insight into how they might be disrupted in diseases and disorders of memory and thought such as Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia,” said study author Matthew A. Wilson.
Wilson, neuroscience professor at the MIT Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, said “this understanding may lead to new methods of diagnosis and treatment”.
His lab explores how rats form and recall memory by recording, with unprecedented accuracy, the activity of single neurons in the hippocampus while the animal is performing tasks, pausing between actions and sleeping.
The hippocampus is the seahorse-shaped brain region researchers believe to be critical for learning and memory.
Wilson’s previous work has shown that after the animals run a maze, their brains “replay” during sleep the sequence of events they experienced while awake.
Researchers believe this process is key to sleep-reinforced memory consolidation in both animals and humans, says an MIT release.
The latest study shows that these sequences also occur when the animals are awake and may help them decide what to do next.
The work appeared in the Thursday day issue of the journal Neuron.
- How humans learn and remember - Aug 27, 2009
- Brain replays control decision-making process, not long-term memories - Mar 12, 2010
- Can reflecting on past experiences influence future choices? - Dec 23, 2010
- Individual brain cells can identify both cars and cats - Jun 10, 2010
- New research may help patients recover from brain injury - Oct 06, 2010
- Tickling brain part boosts memory cells - Sep 21, 2011
- New discovery may lead to advances in treating anxiety disorders - Jan 08, 2011
- Computer chip used to make rat blink - Sep 25, 2011
- How brain learns and encodes new skills - Apr 14, 2011
- Electrical oscillations key for storing info in brain - Apr 30, 2011
- Bingeing on soda, sweets makes you a dim wit - May 16, 2012
- Tiny parts of brain take short naps to recharge - Apr 28, 2011
- Why minor details are linked to long-term memories - Jan 14, 2011
- Wine could boost memory and learning ability - Jul 12, 2010
- Specific changes in the brain linked to sleep deprivation - Nov 04, 2010
Tags: alzheimer, brain region, brains, hippocampus, instant replay, learning and memory, maze, memory consolidation, neuron, neurons, neuroscience, picower institute, rats, schizophrenia, seahorse, sequence of events, sequences, study author, unprecedented accuracy, wilson wilson