Animals use non-memory method to store, retrieve food: brain study

JERUSALEM, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) — Israeli brain researchers uncovered a new, non-memory-based mechanism among animals to cache and retrieve food, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) said in a statement on Thursday.
Their new study, published in Scientific Reports, proposes that animals use a neural mechanism similar to hash function algorithms in computing, which convert a variable-length free input into a fixed-length output, usually much shorter.
This method, according to the researchers, provides a more effective explanation for how animals manage numerous food caches without overloading their memory systems.
The study suggests that this mechanism could enhance the understanding of animal behavior, and brain function, and even inspire advancements in artificial intelligence.
The researchers’ model reflects the activity of hippocampal spatial cells, which maintain consistent activation across repeated visits to the same location while differing between different areas.
This process, combined with distinct cognitive maps, produces persistent hash functions that support food caching and retrieval.
The model features a simple neural network architecture that generates a probabilistic hash unique to each animal, allowing for extensive encoding of structured data.
The framework involves a biologically plausible hashing mechanism through a neural network, with an input layer encoding environmental landmarks and an output layer representing food cache locations.
Both layers form a two-dimensional grid, where cache sites are determined by the activity levels of the output neurons, known as the cache score. ■