Laboratorio de Neurociencia de la Conducta, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Seville, C/Camilo Jose Cela, s/n. 41018 Seville, Spain.
Behav Brain Res. 2011 Nov 20;225(1):367-72. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2011.07.027. Epub 2011 Jul 23.
Recent studies have found that hippocampus of mammals and birds and the lateral pallium of the fish telencephalon are critical for learning the geometric properties of space. Nevertheless, other studies suggest that navigation based on geometric information is primarily supported by proximal cues near the target location. According to this hypothesis, animals could use a taxon strategy to navigate an environment where only geometric cues are available and the results from lesion studies could be masking other effects related to the use of featural information. In the present study, we examined the effects of lesions to the lateral pallium of goldfish in the encoding of geometric spatial information. Goldfish with telencephalic lesions were trained to search for a goal in a rectangular-shaped arena with either one or two possible goals. Lateral pallium lesions do not interfere with goal location when the geometric information defined the goal unambiguously. Present results suggest that the geometric information is sensitive to be encoded in taxon strategies and therefore it could not depend directly on the correct functioning of the hippocampal system.
最近的研究发现，哺乳动物和鸟类的海马体以及鱼类端脑的外侧神经皮层对于学习空间的几何性质至关重要。然而，其他研究表明，基于几何信息的导航主要由目标位置附近的近端线索支持。根据这一假设，动物可以使用分类策略来导航一个只有几何线索的环境，而病变研究的结果可能掩盖了与使用特征信息相关的其他影响。在本研究中，我们研究了金鱼端脑外侧神经皮层损伤对几何空间信息编码的影响。将患有脑损伤的金鱼训练在一个长方形的竞技场中寻找一个目标，其中有一个或两个可能的目标。当几何信息明确定义目标时，外侧神经皮层损伤不会干扰目标位置。目前的结果表明，几何信息在分类策略中容易被编码，因此它不能直接依赖于海马系统的正常运作。
