>Sender: <complex-science@necsi.org>
>To: <complex-science@necsi.org>
>Subject: Study shows rats dream about running mazes
>Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 08:42:57 -0500
>From: Yaneer Bar-Yam <yaneer@necsi.org>
>
>Study shows rats dream about running mazes
>
>By Jay Lindsay, Associated Press, 01/24/01
>
>BOSTON - Rats apparently can't escape the rat
>race, even when they're sound asleep.
>
>Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of
>Technology say they have entered the dreams
>of rats and found them busily working their
>way through the same lab mazes they
>negotiate during the day.
>
>It is evidence not just that animals dream --
>most pet owners know that already -- but that
>they have complex dreams, replaying events
>much the way humans do, researchers said.
>And they may use their dreams to learn or
>memorize.
>
>The findings, announced Wednesday, could
>eventually help researchers understand how
>the human mind works in the murky world of
>the subconscious.
>
>"It's really opening a new door into the study
>of dreams," 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.
>
>But Robert Stickgold, assistant professor of
>psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said
>there is no way to prove MIT researchers
>were seeing rats dream.
>
>"If the rat would tell us, `Yes, I was dreaming
>about running around the track,' then we'd
>have it nailed down," Stickgold.
>
>The rats in the MIT study were hooked up to a
>device that measured the pattern of neurons firing
>in the hippocampus, an area of the brain known to
>be involved in memory.
>
>The scientists had the mice perform specific
>tasks in a maze that produced very distinctive
>patterns of brain activity. When they repeatedly
>saw almost exactly the same patterns reproduced
>during sleep, they concluded the rats were
>dreaming about running through the maze.
>
>The correlation was so great that scientists
>said they could place where in the maze the rat
>was dreaming it was.
>
>The discovery of similarities between human
>and animal dreams could enable scientists to
>use the rats to learn more about the human
>mind, Wilson said. Scientists could
>manipulate the rats' experiences in a way
>that is not permissible with people.
>
>For instance, some scientists believe people
>solve problems in their dreams. The theory
>could be tested on rats, he said.
>
>Scientists also believe that dreams help form
>and reinforce long-term memories. The MIT
>findings may bolster that theory.
>
>Wilson's research was funded in part by the
>National Institutes of Health.
>
>
>------------------------------------------------
>Yaneer Bar-Yam
>President
>New England Complex Systems Institute
>http://necsi.org
>------------------------------------------------
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------
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--_________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Francis Heylighen <fheyligh@vub.ac.be> -- Center "Leo Apostel" Free University of Brussels, Krijgskundestr. 33, 1160 Brussels, Belgium tel +32-2-6442677; fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html ======================================== Posting to pcp-discuss@lanl.gov from Francis Heylighen <fheyligh@vub.ac.be>
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