Rat-bots: Behaviourism with a new lease of life?

[Sturla Molden]

MBF stimulation is not new, it has been used to train rats
to do all sorts of tasks for ages. E.g. NASA used the same 
kind of reward to train rats to run in a 3D maze under 
zero-gravity conditions on a space shuttle flight.
The only difference this is that this time the researchers 
has US Defence Department funding, which obviously has an 
lead to an unusual application for this setup. As far as I can
see, the only thing new is that Talwar et al. has taken 
an MBF implanted rat for a walk outside the lab 
(or the space shuttle).  


S.M.