Apr. 18,
2013 — A new study of brain rhythms in bats and rats challenges a widely
used model -- based on studies in rodents -- of how animals navigate their
environment. To get a clearer picture of the processes at work in the mammal
brain during spatial navigation, neuroscientists must closely study a broad
range of animals, say the two University
of Maryland College Park
scientists involved in the study.
In the April
19, 2013 issue ofScience, the University
of Maryland researchers and two
colleagues at Boston
University reported
significant differences between rats' and bats' brain rhythms in a part of the
brain used in navigation.
The
researchers focused on specialized cells that process spatial information in a
region called the medial entorhinal cortex, a hub of neural networks for memory
and navigation. Earlier experiments showed rats' brain cells in this area fire
continuously in a rhythmic electrical signal called a theta wave when the
animals are navigating through space. Some models of the brain treat theta
waves as a key element of spatial navigation in all mammals, but this idea is
based on rodent research, Moss said.
The Boston
University-University of Maryland
team tested for rhythmic electrical responses at the cellular level in bat and
rat brain tissue. They found evidence for theta waves in the rat cells. But in
the bat cells these waves were absent, said Moss, who has studied bats since
the 1980s.
"This
raises questions as to whether theta rhythms are actually doing what the
spatial navigation theory proposes," said a co-author, UMD biology
researcher Katrina MacLeod. "To understand brains, including ours, we
really must study neural activity in a variety of animals."
Humans and
other mammals share many common features of brain organization, and the
differences in theta waves between bats and rats raises questions about how
spatial information is represented in all brains.
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