Rats are extremely playful creatures. They love playing chase, and they literally jump for joy when tickled. Central to this playfulness, a new study finds, are cells in a specific region of rats’ brains.
The results give insight into a poorly understood behavior, particularly in terms of how play is controlled in the brain. “There are prejudices that it’s childish and not important, but play is an underrated behavior,” says Michael Brecht, a neuroscientist at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Scientists think play helps animals develop resilience. Some even relate it to optimal functioning. “When you’re playing, you’re being your most creative, thoughtful, interactive self,” says Jeffrey Burgdorf, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., who was not involved in the new study. This is the opposite of depressive states, and Burgdorf’s own research aims to turn understanding the neuroscience of play into new therapies for mood disorders.
For the new study, Brecht and colleagues got rats used to lab life and being tickled and played with in a game of chase-the-hand. When rats play, they squeal with glee at a frequency of 50 kilohertz, which humans can’t hear. The researchers recorded these ultrasonic giggles as a way of measuring when the rats were having fun.
2023-07-28 10:00:00
Original from www.sciencenews.org
