What driving rats can teach us about life

Ratatouille was onto something – rats can teach humans things. At least according to University of Richmond neuroscientist Kelly Lambert, who recently published new insights regarding her team’s work with rodent F1 drivers.

Not a typo: As documented in a 2019 study, Lambert and her team have taught a group of rats how to drive tiny cars using Froot Loops as food rewards (fun fact: they like revving the engine). The experiment, later featured in Netflix’s The Hidden Lives of Pets, was contrived as a way of studying the relationship between animal environments, stress, and the development of cognition and new skills.

It’s not over. The project continues with new, improved rat-operated vehicles, or ROVs, designed by a robotics professor and his students. These upgraded electrical ROVs – featuring rat-proof wiring, indestructible tires and ergonomic driving levers – are “akin to a rodent version of Tesla’s Cybertruck,” per Lambert.

But there has been a slight change in the experiment’s focus. In the summer of 2020, the researchers noticed the rats appeared to eagerly anticipate either the Froot Loops or the driving itself (similar to how a dog gets the zoomies before a walk) – and decided to shift focus to how positive events, and anticipation for these events, shape neural functions. The new direction was dubbed the “Wait For It” research program, due to researchers designing experiments that used waiting periods to ramp up anticipation before a positive event, such as forcing the rats to wait 15 minutes between an initial stimulus and receiving a Froot Loop.

What they’ve found so far, per Lambert:

• In a test designed to measure rodent optimism, rats required to wait for their rewards show signs of shifting from a pessimistic cognitive style to an optimistic one.
• Rats trained to anticipate positive experiences were more likely to have higher dopamine levels, and would hold their tails higher than untrained rats.

🐀 What this means: Neuroscience research increasingly suggests joy and positive emotions play a critical role in the health of both human and nonhuman animals. And driving rats serve as a good reminder for humans to enjoy the journey as well as the destination, per Lambert: “Rather than pushing buttons for instant rewards, they remind us that planning, anticipating, and enjoying the ride may be key to a healthy brain.”

Read Lambert’s full essay here.