I agree. This is awesome work and is a great starting point. The regular gridding to me indicates that the rats learned the routes and found them easy and maybe

I agree. This is awesome work and is a great starting point. The regular gridding to me indicates that the rats learned the routes and found them easy and maybe even boring so after a point, they were not challenged intellectually in the navigation. Once their environment was modified, the rats began to engage more of their brain to learn and manage the choices that each situation required. I just thought it was funny that the researchers were surprised to see such a large difference in how rats handle complexity when we know going in that rats are pretty intelligent. Those rats probably know each researcher, have favorites, remember routes, and get bored with those tasks like we would be. It becomes muscle memory for them so they go through the motions to get the treat they know is waiting.