Our lab aims to understand how the brain controls behavior. To approach this question, we train rats to perform behavioral tasks and then measure the electrical activity in their brains as they behave.
This schematic shows a rat at the choice point of a classic behavioral test, the T-maze. The rat must turn either left or right, using previous experience to deduce which direction predicts the best outcome.
Although this sort of mutually-exclusive decision between two simultaneously-available options has a long history of study, choices like this are relatively rare in nature. You can read more about the topology of naturalistic decisions by clicking on the image.