"Black Tail" is up first, taking a few seconds to sniff her surroundings before placing her paw on a lever and zooming away.Now, the rodents serve as ambassadors for the school's Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory, headed by Professor Kelly Lambert.
These pharmaceutical approaches have faced increasing scrutiny since a landmark study published in July questioned the theory that chemical imbalances, especially a lack of serotonin, cause depression. A previous experiment of hers had split rats into groups of"workers," who were assigned an effort-based reward task of digging through dirt mounds for a Froot Loop - or a control group of"trust fund" rats that were simply handed over treats.
Rats that learned to drive also had biomarkers of greater resilience and lowered stress -- which Lambert suggests might be linked to the satisfaction of acquiring a new skill, like a human mastering a new piano piece.