Sunday Driver Rats!

Now here's something ya don't see everyday folks:

US scientists have reported successfully training a group of rats to drive tiny cars in exchange for bits of Froot Loops cereal and found that learning the task lowered their stress levels. (Lambert said she had long been interested in neuroplasticity -- how the brain changes in response to experience and challenges -- and particularly wanted to explore how well rats that were housed in more natural settings ("enriched environments") performed against those kept in labs.)

Seventeen rats were trained over several months to drive around an arena 150 centimetres by 60 centimetres made of plexiglass.Writing in the journal Behavioural Brain Research, the researchers said the animals could indeed be taught to drive forward as well as steer in more complex navigational patterns.

As she had suspected, Lambert found that the animals kept in stimuli-rich environments performed far better than their lab rat counterparts, but "it was actually quite shocking to me that they were so much better," she said.All rats that underwent training had higher levels of dehydroepiandrosterone, indicating a more relaxed state, which could be linked to the satisfaction of gaining mastery over a new skill, referred to as "self-efficacy" or "agency" in humans.

What's more, rats that drove themselves showed higher levels of dehydroepiandrosterone as compared to those who were merely passengers when a human controlled the vehicle, meaning they were less stressed -- something that will be familiar to nervous backseat drivers.

As a matter of fact, the rats like driving so much that they now regularly go on Sunday afternoon drives! 

The way I see it anyway!