An interesting study and report — a couple of researchers from Princeton point out that if we want to do lab studies of animals that tell us more meaningful info about the brain, we should let those animals live in more naturalistic settings — digging burrows and living in the kind of rodent hierarchies that exist in the real world. Otherwise, findings produced under unnatural circumstances in sterile rat cages won’t tell us much useful information about how brains — theirs and ours — work in a more complex setting.

Welcome to the real world, rodent subjects! (Assuming somebody really does these kinds of experiments.

(Here’s a photo of my dogs in their natural setting. Wonder what’s going on in those brains… )