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How often do we ask ourselves how our pets can know that it is the time when we arrive from work, or that it was time to eat, to go take a walk or get up. We tend to think that our attitudes may be revealed to us and that there are some of them. Researchers at the North West University (United States) were able to verify that our animals had an idea of the time that pbaded .
In a statement, the Institution explained that our furry companions had a lot of activated neurons "as if they were a clock" while waiting . As they explained, this work represents "one of the most obvious evidence that animals have a perception of time"
How did they determine it? They decided to study the entorhinal cortex located in the middle temporal lobe of the brain badociated with memory and navigation. Because he encodes spatial information, the study leader, Daniel Dombeck, said he may also be related to time. And, apparently, he was not mistaken.
During the experiment, they took a number of mice that had to be operated on a tape, in a virtual reality environment: they had to cross a corridor, stop at halfway and wait six minutes. seconds after opening a door, then continue until the end to receive a reward. After several sessions, the moment of truth has arrived: they made invisible the door where they had to stop.
What happened? They stopped for six seconds anyway! They knew where the door was because of the difference in the texture of the floor; "The important thing here is that rodents do not know if the door was open or closed because it was invisible .The only way to effectively solve this task is to use the sense of brain time" , said James Heys, senior author of the article published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
This is not the only conclusion, neuroscientists have observed that neurons badociated with spatial control were lit up; but when they stopped in front of the invisible door, they came out and another group of different cells appeared which was "a real surprise and a new discovery". According to Dombeck, these "time cells" were not activated while running, but only at rest, but "they encode the elapsed time," he said.
The research is not simply anecdotal, but could have implications for humans As stated, this new group of neurons could be useful in research on neurodegenerative diseases . "Patients with Alzheimer's disease forget when things are happening.This may be because they lose some basic functions of the cortex entorhinal, one of the first regions of the brain affected by the disease, "they said. "This could lead to early detection: we could start by asking how much time has elapsed or ask them to navigate virtual reality, as well as mice," they concluded.
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