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# A chocoholic rat named Marco helped scientists figure out where we perceive time
- URL: https://thechocolatelife.com/a-chocoholic-rat-named-marco-helped-scientists-figure-out-where-we-perceive-time/
- Published: 2018-08-31T19:00:20.000Z
- Updated: 2020-12-30T16:57:53.000Z
- Author: Clay Gordon
- Tags: TCL Originals

From an article on Ars Technica by *Jennifer Ouellette.*

“Scientists have known how the brain encodes the aspect of space in our memories since 2005, with the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of grid cells. These reside in a brain region called the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), and they collectively map our environment into hexagonal units.

“The philosopher Martin Heidegger suggested in the 1920s that time persists solely as a consequence of the events that take place within it.

\> Now, a team of Norwegian scientists has [confirmed the mechanism](https://geminiresearchnews.com/2018/08/how-your-brain-experiences-time/?ref=thechocolatelife.com) the brain uses to make sense of the passage of time as we experience something, thanks to the help of a chocolate-loving lab rat. **Named** **Marco**.

![](https://thechocolatelife.com/content/images/wordpress/2020/12/VdeUjtuzEUuPoHJVEH6UTw-1)

“The researchers put their hunch to the test in an experiment with a rat named Marco. In the first round, Marco was free to roam about for two hours, exploring his environment in search of his favorite treat: bits of chocolate. The researchers tracked his brain activity \[…\] as he did so and then successfully worked backward from the recorded signal to verify exactly when various key events (like finding a piece of yummy chocolate) had occurred during the experiment.”

[**Click here**](https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/scientists-found-brains-internal-clock-that-influences-how-we-perceive-time/?ref=thechocolatelife.com) to read the article in Ars Technica.  
[**Click here**](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0459-6?ref=thechocolatelife.com) to read the abstract of the research the article is based on (published in Nature).

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