Picower researcher explains how rats think - MIT News Office

Picower researcher explains how rats think - MIT News Office: "After running a maze, rats mentally replay their actions -- but backward, like a film played in reverse, a researcher at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT reports Feb. 12 in the advance online edition of Nature.

In 2001, Matthew A. Wilson, a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, reported that animals have complex dreams and are able to retain and recall long sequences of events while asleep. Like people, rats go through multiple stages of sleep, from slow-wave sleep to REM sleep."