"it was nearly identical from time to time to time—and the system worked from rat to rat to rat”

"Inside the Memory Machine"

Based on the activity they observed, they could even tell when the rats were going to make an error. “The rats are not making mistakes randomly. They’re responding the way they are because the hippocampus encoded the wrong information,” he adds.

Humans make similar errors when they try to look for their parked cars, Deadwyler says. Imagine if yesterday, you parked your car in the second row near the door, but today, you parked in the fourth row near the back. But today you were also preoccupied by a 9 a.m. meeting, and so you weren’t paying close attention to where you parked. If you tried to find your car in the second row of the lot, you would be making the same mistake as the rats because your hippocampus didn’t encode this morning’s parking spot very well.

rat hippocampus