CAPTION: This is an illustration of a rat wearing the geomagnetic
device.
CREDIT: Norimoto and Ikegaya
Summary
(April 4, 2015) Allocentric sense is one of the major components that
underlie spatial navigation. In blind patients, the difficulty in spatial
exploration is attributed, at least partly, to the deficit of absolute
direction perception. In support of this notion, we announce that blind adult
rats can perform spatial tasks normally when externally provided with real-time
feedback of their head directions. Head-mountable microstimulators coupled with
a digital geomagnetic compass were bilaterally implanted in the primary visual
cortex of adult rats whose eyelids had been sutured. These “blind” rats were
trained to seek food pellets in a T-shaped maze or a more complicated maze.