Definitely no tailgating behind that one...
🐷
Posted on 11/17/2024 7:24:28 AM PST by DFG
We crafted our first rodent car from a plastic cereal container. After trial and error, my colleagues and I found that rats could learn to drive forward by grasping a small wire that acted like a gas pedal. Before long, they were steering with surprising precision to reach a Froot Loop treat.
As expected, rats housed in enriched environments – complete with toys, space and companions – learned to drive faster than those in standard cages. This finding supported the idea that complex environments enhance neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to change across the lifespan in response to environmental demands.
After we published our research, the story of driving rats went viral in the media. The project continues in my lab with new, improved rat-operated vehicles, or ROVs, designed by robotics professor John McManus and his students. These upgraded electrical ROVs – featuring rat-proof wiring, indestructible tires and ergonomic driving levers – are akin to a rodent version of Tesla’s Cybertruck.
As a neuroscientist who advocates for housing and testing laboratory animals in natural habitats, I’ve found it amusing to see how far we’ve strayed from my lab practices with this project. Rats typically prefer dirt, sticks and rocks over plastic objects. Now, we had them driving cars.
But humans didn’t evolve to drive either. Although our ancient ancestors didn’t have cars, they had flexible brains that enabled them to acquire new skills – fire, language, stone tools and agriculture. And some time after the invention of the wheel, humans made cars.
Although cars made for rats are far from anything they would encounter in the wild, we believed that driving represented an interesting way to study how rodents acquire new skills.
(Excerpt) Read more at theconversation.com ...
It is very groundbreaking work. This is why I binge of Fruit Loops every night.
Great article. But anyone who has pets knows that animals experience all the emotions humans do. :-)
Ping.
So if you give rats or people a goal with a reward they will work to achieve it and learn how.
We just destroyed liberalism and proved that capitalism is best!
yup! And they also experience PTSD.
That’s cool giving the rat cars “Ezekiel’s Wheels” that let them move on the diagonal without having to turn.
Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s Rat Fink
Right!
Is this a case of the first frivolous grant recipient actually volunteering to be a target for DOGE?
This is adorable but I hope my tax dollars weren’t paying for it. (I’m sure they were.)
Not driving so much he’s only mastered the radio controls so far.
Jill drives it’s her car anyway.
Now I know why you had to be heavily medicated. ;)
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