Rats can dream! And guess what they dream about? Their own rat races! Read on to know more!!!!!!!!!!
A study conducted by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, proves that rats are capable of dreaming about rat races and that they might in the long run help scientists understand how the human mind works.Most pet owners know that their pets can dream. They would have actually seen their pets suckling and kicking in their dreams. But not everyone knows that rats can dream and that scientists have actually managed to enter their dreams to the point where they can say what the rat is dreaming about and where the rat is in its dream.
The findings were announced on Wednesday and these will go a long way in helping the scientists further their understanding on the way human mind works.
βIt's really opening a new door into the study of dreams,β said Matt Wilson, associate professor at MIT's Center for Learning and Memory and leader of the study, published in Friday's issue of the journal Neuron.
Similarities between the human brain and the rat brain have enthused the scientists to realize the fact that this study can be used to understand the functioning of human mind better.
To prove that they actually knew that the rats were dreaming, the scientists used this simple method. The rats were hooked on to a machine where the pattern of neuron firing at the hippocampus area of the brain was recorded. Then the rats were allowed to run around inside a maze and the patterns were recorded. Later during sleep the scientists got exactly the same patterns and this made them conclude that the rats were dreaming about running in a maze.
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