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How many times do we ask ourselves how our pets can know that it is the time when we arrived from work, or that it was time to eat, to go out and do 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 from Northwestern University (United States) they could check that our animals have an idea of the time passing.
In a statement, the institution explained that our furry companions have a set of neurons that are activated "as if they were a clock" while waiting. As they explained, this work represents "one of the most obvious evidence that animals have the sense of time".
How did they determine it? Well, they decided to study entorhinal cortex, located in the middle temporal lobe of the brainwhich is associated with memory and navigation. Because he encodes spatial information, the study leader, Daniel Dombeck, said he may also be related to time. And, apparently, I was not mistaken.
In the experiment, they took a number of mice that had to work on a tape, in a virtual reality environment: they had to cross a corridor, stop halfway and wait six seconds for the door to open. , then continue. until the end to receive a reward. After several sessions, the moment of truth has arrived: They made the door invisible where they had to stop.
What happened? They stopped for six seconds anyway! They knew where the door was because of the difference in soil texture, so they stopped there at the right time and then ran towards the end. "The important thing here is that the rodents did 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, lead author of the article published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
This was not the only conclusion, neuroscientists observed that neurons associated with spatial control continued; but when they stopped in front of the invisible door, they came out and another group of different cells appearedwhich was "a real surprise and a new discovery". According to Dombeck, these "time cells" did not activate during execution, but only at rest, but "they encode the elapsed time," he said.
The research is not just anecdotal, but may have implications for humans. As indicated, this new group of neurons could be useful in the investigation of 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 long has elapsed or ask them to navigate virtual reality, as well as mice," they concluded.
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