Israeli scientists studying neural activity in bats have learned how the winged mammals perceive their environment in three dimensions.
According to the researchers at Weizmann Institute of Science, their study is the first of its kind to measure how three-dimensional, volumetric space is perceived in mammalian brains.
To measure the neural activity and three-dimensional special reasoning of abilities of bats, the researchers had to design a system that would be operable while the bats were in flight but that would not hinder their movement.
Lead researcher Nachum Ulanovsky spent several years developing the wireless system used to record the bat's neural data. He chose to conduct his research on the Egyptian fruit bat because they are common in Israel and relatively large. The wireless device he developed weighted just seven percent of the bat's body weight as was able to measure the activity of individual neurons in the bat's brain.
Ulanovsky recorded the bat's flight in an artificial "cave" in his lab.
Measuring the activity of hippocampus neurons in the bats' brains revealed that the representation of three-dimensional space is similar to that in two dimensions: Each place cell is responsible for identifying a particular spatial area in the "cave" and sends an electrical signal when the bat is located in that area. Together, the population of place cells provides full coverage of the cave - left and right, up and down, according to a release from the Weizmann Institute.
The institute says the findings provide new insights into some of the brain's basic functions, including navigation, spatial memory, and spatial perception.