Scientists 'watch' rats string memories together
Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - 18:30
in Biology & Nature
Each of the five panels shows a memory snapshot created by hundreds of place cells while the rat was physically stationary at the top of the 1.8 m track By using electrode implants to track nerve cells firing in the brains of rats as they plan where to go next, Johns Hopkins scientists say they have learned that the mammalian brain likely reconstructs memories in a way more like jumping across stepping stones than walking across a bridge. A summary of their experiments, published in the journal Science on July 10, sheds light on what memories are and how they form, and gives clues about how the system can fail.