News Neuroscience

In a Jedi-like feat, rats can move a digital object using just their brain

A new study hints at how brains can imagine places that they’re not physically in

A gray rat on a black backround, with its head and one front paw raised.

By activating certain nerve cells in their brains, rats can imagine being somewhere else.

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By Laura Sanders

Like tiny, hairy Yodas raising X-wings from a swamp, rats can lift digital cubes and drop them near a target. But these rats aren’t using the Force. Instead, they are using their imagination.

This telekinetic trick, described in the Nov. 3 Science, provides hints about how brains imagine new scenarios and remember past ones.