Department of Psychology and J.P. Scott Center for Neuroscience, Mind, and Behavior, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA.
Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2011 Sep;96(2):353-60. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2011.06.010. Epub 2011 Jul 1.
The septo-hippocampal system in birds resembles that of mammals, motivating research into the function of the avian hippocampus while surprisingly little attention has been given to the septum. To investigate a possible role of the avian septum in memory, the effects of septal area lesions on a spatial working memory (SpWM) task was tested in homing pigeons. After preoperative training on an analogue eight-arm (feeders) radial maze, now sham-operated control and septal lesioned pigeons were then trained again on the same task of locating the four feeders on the test phase of a trial that were not baited during the sample phase of a trial. During the test phase of a working memory trial, septal lesioned pigeons, compared to both their own preoperative performance and the performance of the controls, required significantly more choices to locate the four baited feeders not baited during the sample phase of a trial, and they made significantly fewer correct responses to the now baited feeders on their first four choices. The results demonstrate that, like its mammalian counterpart, the avian septum plays an important role in SpWM, suggesting that at least some functional properties of the septum are evolutionarily conserved in birds and mammals.
鸟类的隔-海马系统类似于哺乳动物，这激发了人们对鸟类海马体功能的研究，而对隔区的关注却很少。为了研究鸟类隔区在记忆中的可能作用，本研究在归巢鸽中测试了隔区损伤对空间工作记忆（SpWM）任务的影响。在模拟八臂（喂食器）放射状迷宫上进行术前训练后，现在进行假手术对照和隔区损伤鸽子再次在相同的任务上进行训练，即在试验的测试阶段找到在试验的样本阶段未喂食的四个喂食器。在工作记忆试验的测试阶段，与术前表现和对照组相比，隔区损伤鸽子需要更多的选择才能找到在样本阶段未喂食的四个喂食器，并且在前四个选择中，它们对现在喂食的喂食器做出的正确反应明显更少。结果表明，与哺乳动物的隔区一样，鸟类的隔区在 SpWM 中起着重要作用，这表明至少隔区的一些功能特性在鸟类和哺乳动物中是进化保守的。
