Mapped from birth

摘要

How do newborn rats find their way around? Easily, it seems: two groups report that some basic elements of spatial representation don't require any experience.rnResearchers recorded the activity of three types of neuron in the brains of rat pups as they explored their environment for the first time. Tom Wills, Francesca Cacucci and their colleagues at University College London report that head-direction neurons - which are tuned to fire according to the direction in whichrnthe animal points its head - are already fully developed by the time a pup first ventures from the nest.