New research shows rats use imagination to navigate
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Do rats have an imagination?
What sort of things can you imagine in your head? An incredible adventure? Or maybe an exciting story?
Well it turns out it's not just humans that can imagine things - it's rats too!
A new study found that rats can find their way through spaces by using their imagination, based on how the space looked before.
In the same way you can remember how to get to different rooms in schools, rats can navigate their way using memory.
A map in your brain
Maybe human and rat brains aren't too different!
Humans make their way through places that they have been before using a part of the brain called the hippocampus.
Try notice it next time you walk to your classroom, or go around your home. You do it without thinking or wondering where to go next - your brain just knows where to go.
This is because we can imagine getting to a place we've been before, and use this imagination to get there.
Researchers wanted to find out if rats' brains work in a similar way - and it turns out they do!
These clever rodents have some impressive brain skills
Scientists used virtual reality to see how rats react in environments that they are familiar with.
They were put into treadmill balls - which is a bit like a hamster ball that stays in one place.
The virtual reality was projected on the inside of the ball.
When the rats moved around the environment, they were given a treat. They were then put in a different "place" in their virtual reality - and managed to move about using what they learned from the space they were in before!
What do you think goes through a rat's head?
What does this study mean?
Although this can't prove to us that rats are imagining stories or crazy adventures, like you might do, it does tell us more about how their brains work.
Rats are known as being quite smart creatures. They often work with each other to move around and to find food.
This study shows that there might be more going on in rodents' brains than we originally thought.