New research suggests that rats seem to "dream," replaying events from when they were awake such as running through a maze. This reaffirms the theory that episodic memory–"life stories"–is reinforced while we sleep. The cognitive scientists at MIT recorded neuronal patterns of rats while they're awake doing an activity. The same neurons were seen to fire while the animal slept, both in its visual cortex and also the hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with memory formation. From the MIT News Office:
"This work brings us closer to an understanding of the nature of animal dreams and gives us important clues as to the role of sleep in processing memories of our past experiences," (professor Matthew) Wilson said…
"These results imply simultaneous reactivation of coherent memory traces in the cortex and hippocampus during sleep that may contribute to or reflect the result of the memory consolidation process," Wilson and (postodcotoral researcher Daoyun Ji wrote in Nature Neuroscience.)
