Understanding Animal Cognition: How Mice Strategize and Learn

Wednesday - May 1 2024, 10:14 UTC - 9 months ago

A recent study by Kishore Kuchibhotla and his team at Johns Hopkins University reveals that mice are more strategic and intelligent than previously believed. By exploring and testing their knowledge, they may use higher cognitive processes to improve their understanding. This discovery has significant implications for our understanding of animal cognition and could lead to a better understanding of the neural basis for strategizing.

When it comes to animal cognition, mice are often overlooked and underestimated. But a recent study by Kishore Kuchibhotla and his team at Johns Hopkins University sheds light on just how clever these furry creatures can be.

Kuchibhotla and his team have long studied learning in humans and animals, particularly mice. And they've noticed a curious trend: while rodents may have a deep understanding of a task, they often perform poorly in tests that assess their knowledge. Wondering what could be behind this gap, the researchers devised a simple experiment to get to the bottom of it.

In the experiment, mice were trained to perform a task based on certain cues. The researchers observed that, upon hearing these cues, the mice would initially engage in what looked like mistakes, but upon closer observation, it became clear that the mice were actually engaging in a form of exploration. Kuchibhotla likens this behavior to a form of strategizing, stating, "It's hard to say animals are making hypotheses, but our view is that animals, like humans, can make hypotheses and they can test them and may use higher cognitive processes to do it." .

This discovery has significant implications for our understanding of animal cognition. By identifying this behavior in mice, Kuchibhotla and his team hope to pinpoint the neural basis for strategizing in animals. Their findings, published in Current Biology, shed new light on how animals process information and make decisions.

Further experiments revealed even more about the rodents' cognitive abilities. The researchers removed the reward from the equation, and found that when a mouse performed correctly and wasn't rewarded, it immediately doubled down on the correct response upon retesting. According to Kuchibhotla, this is strong evidence that animals have an internal model of the task and use it to test and improve their understanding, stating, "The animal is like, 'Hey, I was expecting to be rewarded, I wasn't, so let me test my knowledge, let me use the knowledge I have and see if it's correct.'" .

Kuchibhotla and his team hope that their work will not only deepen our understanding of animal cognition, but also shed light on the abilities of mice and other animals that are often underestimated in the scientific community.