Research has implications for understanding memory and
imagination
While studying rats’ ability to navigate familiar territory,
Johns Hopkins scientists found that one particular brain structure uses
remembered spatial information to imagine routes the rats then follow. Their
discovery has implications for understanding why damage to that structure,
called the hippocampus, disrupts specific types of memory and learning in
people with Alzheimer’s disease and age-related cognitive decline. And because
these mental trajectories guide the rats’ behavior, the research model the
scientists developed may be useful in future studies on higher-level tasks,
such as decision-making.