Can animals count? Neuroscientists identify a sense of numeracy among rodents

A discovery that seems to substantiate the existence of discrete quantity sense in rats has been introduced by a joint analysis workforce from Metropolis College of Hong Kong (CityUHK) and The Chinese language College of Hong Kong (CUHK).

The findings supply an important animal mannequin for investigating the neural foundation of numerical capacity and incapacity in people, the Hong Kong-based researchers say.

This revolutionary examine deployed a numerical studying job, mind manipulation methods and AI modeling to sort out an ongoing debate about whether or not rats can rely, says Professor Yung Wing-ho, Chair Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at CityUHK, who collaborated with CUHK scientists on the College of Drugs.

Their examine, printed in Science Advances, sheds mild on the mechanisms underlying numerical capacity, a cognitive capacity elementary to mathematical aptitude, which is a trademark of human intelligence. The article is titled “Disparate processing of numerosity and associated continuous magnitudes in rats“.

Professor Yung, additionally Affiliate Dean of the Jockey Membership Faculty of Veterinary Drugs and Life Sciences at CityUHK, mentioned the analysis workforce got down to reduce the affect of steady magnitudes in numerical assessments and performed a meticulous quantitative evaluation within the examine to find out the respective contributions of numbers and magnitudes.

The workforce developed an algorithm to generate stimuli that allow animals to focus solely on numbers and reduce different distracting components.

“It will assist us higher perceive how animals understand and quantify numbers,” Professor Yung explains.

The workforce discovered that rats with none earlier data of numbers might develop a way of numbers when skilled with sounds representing two or three numbers. Regardless of the affect of steady magnitudes, the rats constantly targeted on the variety of sounds when making selections for meals rewards.

As well as, the examine helps dissect the connection between magnitude and numerosity processing. The researchers found that once they blocked a particular a part of the rats’ brains, referred to as the posterior parietal cortex, the rats‘ capacity to grasp numbers was affected however not their sense of magnitude. “This implies that the mind has a particular space for coping with numbers,” Professor Yung continues.

The examine not solely solves a long-standing thriller about how brains deal with numbers but additionally gives new insights into learning the particular neural circuits concerned in number processing in animals and the way genes are related to mathematical capacity. The findings from neural community modeling might have sensible purposes within the subject of AI.