t 10 a.m. on a frigid January, the lights automatically flicker on in a rat room at the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Research Park. Postdoc Erin Hanlon strolls in, still wearing her scarf from the trip to the lab, where she will spend the next hour or so with Telito, a rat. Telito's cage is tucked away in a television cabinet–like enclosure. He's freely moving but connected to a nearby computer by a bundle of wires emanating from the four tiny electrodes implanted into his cortex, held in place with screws and dental cement. She'll teach him to extend one paw through a plastic slot to grab a food reward—a task that will exercise a specific region of his brain. After 92 trials, she'll close the door behind her, let him nod off, and wait as the computer records the electrical brain waves of his slumber.
Hanlon ...
