Studying the naked mole-rat’s mental roadmap
Studying naked mole-rat navigation for two years was good, but there is still much to uncover about these unusual animals. Dr. Wenhan Luo, a postdoc in Professor Gary Lewin’s lab, recently received a Humboldt Fellowship to continue his research at the Max Delbrück Center.
“Naked mole-rats have a very sensitive touch system and almost no vision, so we hypothesize they move based on touch, which makes them very special,” says Luo.
As a neuroscientist, Dr. Luo is interested in how spatial memory forms, how humans and animals create mental maps and record landmarks to move around their surroundings. In his PhD work at Peking University, he studied this phenomenon in mice. Now, with Lewin, he has become intrigued by how naked mole-rats, which are essentially blind, speed around so capably in underground tunnel systems. How do the animals map their space and strategize moving as quickly from point A to point B as possible?
He uses a high-speed camera that captures 500 frames per second to observe how the rats move at high resolution. He will also use functional ultrasound imaging to learn which brain regions are activated as the rats’ whiskers and body hairs are touched. By combining observational data with mechanistic studies, he can start to document how naked mole-rats navigate.
Along with continuing his research here, Wenhan Luo is excited for the opportunity to exchange ideas with other Humboldt fellows who are from diverse disciplines.
“I would like to thank the German government because they provide a very good platform for us young scientists to work,” Luo says. “That’s why a lot of people from all over the world come to Germany to start their scientific career.”
Text: Laura Petersen
