{"id":589,"date":"2019-08-02T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/?p=589"},"modified":"2019-08-02T10:45:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T14:45:01","slug":"could-rat-brains-hold-the-secret-to-giving-cars-robots-better-navigational-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/2019\/08\/02\/could-rat-brains-hold-the-secret-to-giving-cars-robots-better-navigational-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Rat Brains Hold the Secret to Giving Cars, Robots Better Navigational Skills?"},"content":{"rendered":"

BU neuroscientists say special \u201cmapping\u201d brain cells could inspire the design of smarter self-driving vehicles<\/h4>\n
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Photo by Just_Super\/iStock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Someday, as autonomous cars speed down our roadways and robots perform elaborate rescue operations too risky for humans to carry out, we may have rats to thank. Well, more specifically: rats, a box of Froot Loops, and a team of Boston University neuroscientists.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0<\/span>a study published in\u00a0<\/span>Nature Communications<\/em><\/a>, BU researchers Jake Hinman, William Chapman, and\u00a0<\/span>Michael Hasselmo<\/a>, director of BU\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Center for Systems Neuroscience<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>and a College of Arts & Sciences professor of psychological and brain sciences, confirmed the presence of specialized brain cells that provide rats with personal maps of their surroundings. They believe that human brains likely have these neurons too, although further research is needed to be certain of this.<\/p>\n

The study, partially funded by a\u00a0<\/span>$7.5 million multidisciplinary grant<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>from the Department of Defense, offers valuable insights into the workings of the brain\u2019s navigational system\u2014knowledge that could be leveraged to create smarter autonomous vehicles that can find their way around obstacles as well as living organisms.<\/p>\n

For decades, scientists have thought that an area of the brain called the hippocampus stores maps of our surroundings, functioning as if it\u2019s the brain\u2019s file cabinet for map illustrations similar to those that pop up when we search for a location on Google Maps. But some researchers theorized that in order to effectively use those maps to navigate our environments, our brains must first convert them to the \u201cstreet-view\u201d version of Google Maps, mentally placing ourselves into a first-person view. In other words, we must develop an idea of where the map\u2019s boundaries and landmarks are located in relation to ourselves.<\/p>\n

Now, the BU team\u2019s findings provide some of the first biological evidence that proves an internal street-view map function does exist, at least in rats\u2014specifically in an area deep in the brain that helps control behavior, the striatum.<\/p>\n

Using electrodes to see what was happening inside the rats\u2019 brains, the researchers brought the animals into a room containing strategically placed, crushed bits of Froot Loops. As the rats embarked on their sugary scavenger hunt, special brain cells within the striatum\u2014called egocentric boundary cells\u2014appeared to go crazy with activity. These boundary cells fired in different ways to guide the rats through their environment.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] much like if I were to give you directions to go somewhere, I might tell you, \u2018Oh, when you\u2019re walking down the street, once there\u2019s a Starbucks on your left, you\u2019re going to turn right,\u2019\u201d says Hinman, first author on the study and a former postdoctoral researcher in Hasselmo\u2019s lab. (He\u2019s now running his own lab as a faculty member at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.)<\/p>\n

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“The goal is to make robots able to navigate effectively in complex environments. It\u2019s easier to have robots working in warehouses that have empty floors\u2026. It\u2019s all very predictable. But it\u2019s much harder for a robot to go across uneven terrain.” –Michael Hasselmo, director of BU\u2019s\u00a0Center for Systems Neuroscience<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While there was no Starbucks to be found in the rats\u2019 testing room, only walls (and, of course, the Froot Loops)\u2014the idea is the same. Hinman says the boundary cells in the striatum served as each rat\u2019s street-view map, firing in precise ways to say, \u201cYou\u2019re close to this wall,\u201d or \u201cThere\u2019s a wall on your right.\u201d This information allowed the rat to orient itself throughout its search for the Froot Loops.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThese [boundary-cell] neurons are our first step in figuring out how animals use these two strings of information to influence each other,\u201d says Chapman, a postdoctoral researcher in Hasselmo\u2019s lab. \u201cBased on where you think you are in the environment, you might expect a wall in a certain location. If it\u2019s not there, you use that to update what you\u2019re doing in that [moment in] time, but you also update your representation of where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

So why is the Department of Defense funding a rat\u2019s mission for sweetened breakfast cereals? Because one day, these missions could be the key to incredible technological breakthroughs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to make robots able to navigate effectively in complex environments,\u201d explains Hasselmo, the study\u2019s principal investigator and senior author. \u201cIt\u2019s easier to have robots working in warehouses that have empty floors\u2026. It\u2019s all very predictable. But it\u2019s much harder for a robot to go across uneven terrain. A human could easily walk across a path and step across boulders\u2026but a robot would find that much more difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take, for instance, the explosions that occurred at the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima Daichii in 2011. High levels of radioactivity prevented human engineers from being able to safely address the situation in person. Robots were sent to help instead, but they were often tripped up by debris and other unpredictable obstacles.<\/p>\n

Hasselmo says self-navigating robots would be better equipped to maneuver hazardous situations like Fukushima. \u201cOne [application for this research] would be for rescue-type operations or salvage-type operations,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Self-driving cars also encounter similar issues on the road and on terrain\u2014for both situations, the brain\u2019s natural navigational system could offer clues for high-tech solutions.<\/p>\n

That natural feat is exactly what the researchers hope robots will be able to accomplish someday. In the meantime, there are still many uncertainties to be explored. So far, Hasselmo\u2019s team has only examined how these boundary cells react to walls; in future studies they hope to address how the cells fire in response to more dynamic boundaries and landmarks, like moving objects or people. They\u2019re also in the process of investigating how\u2014or if\u2014these cells respond in dark environments, where an animal has less visual information to rely on.<\/p>\n

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and an Office of Naval Research MURI grant.<\/span><\/p>\n

By<\/span>\u00a0Kerry Benson<\/span>
\nOriginally published\u00a0 in The Brink (July 23, 2019)\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>

BU neuroscientists say special \u201cmapping\u201d brain cells could inspire the design of smarter self-driving vehicles   Someday, as autonomous cars speed down our roadways and robots perform elaborate rescue operations too risky for humans to carry out, we may have rats to thank. Well, more specifically: rats, a box of Froot Loops, and a team […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1500,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1500"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":602,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions\/602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/neuroautonomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}