Instant replay may help to mould memories
Nature News writes about a recent discovery of how rats running through a maze tend to have a backwards replay of the route when resting:
As the rats ran along the track, the nerve cells fired in a very specific sequence. This is not surprising, because certain cells in this region are known to be triggered when an animal passes through a particular spot in a space. But the researchers were taken aback by what they saw when the rats were resting. Then, the same brain cells replayed the sequence of electrical firing over and over, but in reverse and speeded up.