Rat Nightmares

People that have rats in their ceilings or walls can be kept awake for hours with the insistent scratching and fighting. Worse yet, when those people finally fall asleep those rats may just end up in their dreams as nightmares. But, new research points at rats experiencing their own dreams that maybe nightmares about us. Researchers conducted an experiment where rats were placed in a maze and allowed to explore. After a few minutes in the maze the researchers blasted the rats in the face with a harmless shot of compressed air. Once the rats where sleeping, they could see patterns of connectivity in the rats’ hippocampi consistent with the mental plan of the maze. The researchers observed activity in the emotional part of the brain whenever the animal’s brains remembered the location of the harmless blast of compressed air. Was this reaction fear, apparently the rats would not comment on the question.

gogreenpestcontrol.ca Ladner Tsawwassen Delta B.C. Randy Bilesky

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rat-nightmares-randy-bilesky?published=t

http://www.delta-optimist.com/opinion/blogs/blog-rat-nightmares-1.22643290

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