

Neuroscientists successfully control the dreams of rats - mcantelon
http://io9.com/5940068/neuroscientists-successfully-control-the-dreams-of-rats-could-humans-be-next

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apawloski
Please don't link io9 for scientific articles -- their science journalism is
generally subpar, often barely more than crudely summarizing abstracts in
Nature or Science.

In this case they cite the wrong primary author -- attributing the work to
Matt Wilson instead of Daniel Bendor. While Matt Wilson is the sponsoring
author (ie providing the facilities and general supervision), this is Dr.
Bendor's experiment and he is entirely uncredited here.

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throwaway54-762
Here's the actual Nature article (I love that io9 hides the link by removing
any visual indication it's not normal text):
[http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn.320...](http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nn.3203.html)

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David
It is widely accepted that hippocampal replay occurs during sleep and is an
important part of memory consolidation.

It is not widely accepted that this activation is, or even leads to, the
subjective experience that we call dreaming.

The article gets it right in the second paragraph, but most of the rest of the
paper makes incorrect reference to dreams. Don't expect to program your dreams
any time soon.

The actual result here is very interesting in its own right; it suggests that
the consolidation process can be directed, and if the replay system plays the
role in learning that many people suspect it does, then we might be able to
focus our learning on particular experiences. The idea of learning something
while you sleep by playing a tape might not be as ridiculous as I always
thought it was.

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charlieflowers
This line, fairly early in the article, sounds like BS. If not BS, then it is
poor writing, because it hand-waves over a huge chasm:

"Using correlative analysis, Wilson confirmed that the rats were dreaming of
their maze navigating exploits from the day before."

They _absolutely confirmed_ the rats were dreaming specifically of the mazes
of the day before, by analyzing their neural activity? If so, that technology
is FAR more interesting than merely controlling their dreams!

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toomuchcoffee
Maybe it's the rats who are experimenting _on us_ , faking hippocampal replay
responses to control the dreams of neuroscientist "researchers", making them
run through cognitive mazes while drooling after the ephemeral crumbs of peer
accolades and citation cred...

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S_A_P
I would like to know more info about how they know what the rats are dreaming
about. It sounded like they knew with a high degree of confidence that the
rats were dreaming about something. I want to know they knew this.

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a-priori
One way I know this is possible, from prior research, is by implanting
electrodes into the rat's hippocampi to detect activation in the place cells.

In a nutshell, place cells are cells in the hippocampus that are associated
with particular regions of the environment (their 'place field'). They
activate when the animal visits a place, thinks about a place or, critically,
_dreams_ about a place. The theory is that they're used by your hippocampus to
tie together memories gathered in a particular place during memory
consolidation, to help you recall details about a familiar environment, and to
help build navigation maps of the environment (by linking place cells' fields
together where their fields are close or overlap).

In one study I read a few years ago, neuroscientists implanted electrodes into
a rat's brain and had them run the maze repeatedly, tracking where they were
in the maze and what cells were activated. Later, when the rats were asleep,
they recorded the activation again, and found that they activated in the same
sequence that they did when the rats were actually in the maze. This strongly
implies that they were dreaming about running the maze.

This study seems to be an extension of that where they showed they could
direct the sleeping rats through the maze with 'turn left' and 'turn right'
cues the rats learned while awake.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_cell>

 __Edit: __To be clear, the hypothesis that this replay happens because the
rats are dreaming is pure speculation. My personal hunch is that's what's
going on, but that's all it is: a hunch, an assumption. There's no way to be
sure whether they are experiencing what we call 'dreaming'. All we know is
that the place cells in the rats' hippocampi 'replays' the place cell
activation in the same order that they activated while awake.

~~~
charlieflowers
Great information, thanks. That fills a huge gap in the article.

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koko775
Hmm. Perhaps someday, we will be able to answer the question: Do sheep dream
of electric robots?

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addictdata
I swear I saw this in a movie already...

~~~
eadlam
Pinky and the Brain?

