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I taught rats to drive a car, and it may help us lead happier lives
Teaching rats to drive a tiny car around a laboratory taught scientists a lot about the benefits of anticipating the joy brought by the things we love.
Building on foundational learning approaches such as operant conditioning, which reinforces targeted behaviour through strategic incentives, we trained the rats step-by-step in their driver's educational programmes (using Froot Loops as a reward). Preliminary results suggest that rats required to wait for their rewards show signs of shifting from a pessimistic cognitive style to an optimistic one in a test designed to measure rodent optimism. Natural forms of opiates and dopamine – key players in brain pathways that diminish pain and enhance reward – seem to be tell-tale ingredients of the elevated tails in our anticipation training programme.
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