Internal representation of future interactions in rats

Abstract

Animals and humans receive the most critical information from parts of the environment that are immediately inaccessible, possibly only visually explored, and highly dynamic. The brain must effectively process potential interactions between elements in such an environment to make appropriate decisions in critical situations. We trained male Long-Evans rats to discriminate static and dynamic visuospatial stimuli displayed on an inaccessible computer screen. We demonstrated that the rats learned to discriminate dynamic visuospatial stimuli faster, with greater accuracy and shorter reaction time than complementary static stimuli. Furthermore, we provide behavioral evidence indicating that rats internally represent dynamic environments as static maps that capture meaningful future interactions. These observations highlight the ecological importance of dynamic stimuli in the outside world and support previous findings in humans that internal static representations can encapsulate relevant spatiotemporal information of dynamic environments. Such a mechanism would allow animals and humans to process complex time-changing situations neatly.