Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Piazza Manifattura 1, 38068, Rovereto, TN, Italy.
Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daehak-ro 291, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea.
Brain Struct Funct. 2018 Mar;223(2):941-953. doi: 10.1007/s00429-017-1537-5. Epub 2017 Oct 14.
The hippocampus plays an important role in spatial encoding and memory across various vertebrate species. In rodents, hippocampal neurons are particularly sensitive to a change in environmental geometry. Given the similarities in function between the mammalian and avian hippocampi, we aimed to measure whether enclosures varying in geometric shape (square and rectangle) can differentially activate hippocampal cells in the domestic chick (Gallus gallus domesticus). Chicks exposed to both a square and a rectangular arena exhibited a significantly higher neural activation (as measured by c-Fos expression) than those exposed twice to just the square or just the rectangle (both of which were significantly higher in activation than a one-environment control group). For the first time in an avian species, we show that exposure to two enclosures of different geometric shape activates the hippocampus to a greater degree, suggesting a possible effect of spatial remapping.
海马体在各种脊椎动物物种的空间编码和记忆中发挥着重要作用。在啮齿动物中，海马体神经元对环境几何形状的变化特别敏感。鉴于哺乳动物和鸟类海马体的功能相似，我们旨在测量不同几何形状（正方形和长方形）的围栏是否会使家养小鸡（Gallus gallus domesticus）的海马体细胞产生不同程度的激活。与仅暴露于正方形或长方形两次的小鸡相比，暴露于正方形和长方形两个环境中的小鸡的神经激活（如 c-Fos 表达所测量的）显著更高（两者的激活程度均显著高于一个环境对照组）。这是首次在鸟类物种中表明，暴露于两种不同几何形状的围栏中会使海马体更大程度地激活，这表明可能存在空间映射的影响。
