( July 8, 2021; MIT Technology Review )
Researchers, Nicholas Dotson and Michael Yartsev used a 16-camera motion tracking system and wireless neural data transmitters to monitor bats' brains in flight. Observations showed that the bats maintained spatial memory in detail during random flight and goal-driven flight (while foraging). The colleagues believe that the ability for spatial awareness in time gives bats an effective survival tool that helps them to dodge predators and find food. It is also believed that the study of bats' navigational techniques may help with improving human health, particularly in the area of Alzheimer's patients who often experience difficulty with navigation.
A new paper released today in Science suggests that as bats fly, special neurons known as place cells—located in their hippocampus, a part of the brain that controls memory—helps them process key navigational information about their position not only in the moment but in the past and future as well.
“The finding is kind of intuitive, because we, at least as humans—we have the capability of thinking about where we're going to be or where we've been,” says Nicholas Dotson, a project scientist at the Salk Institute and the lead author of the study.
Read the rest from MIT Technology Review: Bats’ brains predict their next move during flight
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The underlying notion for the research is promising. I'm just wondering how such data will be applied in the real world to help humans with cognitive disorders. The article is educative overall; also agree with the idea that the bats evolved with such abilities for survival purposes.
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My guess is that they're still pretty far away from any human benefit, but they wanted to make some tenuous/speculative link so they could justify the money. I agree that it was an informative article, though.
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As an organism moves through space, its brain has to remember its most recent location and anticipate its future position, not just its current place in the world. That's why learning more about bats may alter our perceptions of Alzheimer's disease, a progressive brain disease that damages cognitive abilities and memory.
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Agreed. I wouldn't be surprised if this phenomenon is shared by most mammals, birds, reptiles, and even fish.
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This is where biomimicry appears, which is the science that studies and copies nature, in the future these studies could also help drones to be more autonomous.
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It is impressive how we find so much wisdom in nature and now is when we have to learn from it.
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