Rats that learn to drive are better able to deal with stressa claim offered by the results of a new study of the University of Richmond.
In accordance with Ars Technica, the aim of the research was to see what effect the environment in which a rat was raised had on its ability to learn new tasks. Although that sort of thing has been studied in the past, the tests haven’t been particularly complicated. This time, the team, led by Professor Kelly Lambert, came up with something a little more difficult than navigating a maze this time around: drive.
If you are going to teach rats to drive, you must first build them a car. The chassis and powertrain came from a robot car kit and a clear plastic food container provided the body..
Explaining the idea of a steering wheel and pedals to the rats was probably too difficult, so the controls were three copper wires stretched through an opening cut in the front of the body and an aluminum plate in the floor.
When a rat stood on the plate and grabbed a copper bar, a circuit was completed and the motors were activated. One bar made the car turn left, one made it turn right, and the third made it go straight.
rats drive smoothly
It didn’t take long for the rats to learn to drive. The driving took place in an enclosed arena where the goal was to drive towards a food treat. Three five-minute sessions a week, for eight weeks, were enough for the rats to learn how to do it.
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The location of the bauble and the starting position and orientation of the cart varied throughout, so the rats had more challenges each time. At the end of the experiment, each rat went through a series of tests, conducted one to two days apart, in which they were allowed to drive around the arena. but without sweets to see if they only did it for the food.
The subjects were 11 male rats, five of which lived together in a large cage with various levels of surface area and objects to play with, and six of which lived together in pairs in standard cages for laboratory rats. Although both groups of rats learned to drive the car, those living in the enriched environment began to drive faster and continued to be more interested in driving, even when there was no reward on offer beyond the thrill of the wind in her hair.
