Institute of Zoology, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Poppelsdorfer Schloss, Meckenheimer Allee 169, 53115, Bonn, Germany.
Anim Cogn. 2021 Sep;24(5):923-946. doi: 10.1007/s10071-021-01514-3. Epub 2021 Apr 27.
Over the last few decades, it has been shown that fish, comprising the largest group of vertebrates and in many respects one of the least well studied, possess many cognitive abilities comparable to those of birds and mammals. Despite a plethora of behavioural studies assessing cognition abilities and an abundance of neuroanatomical studies, only few studies have aimed to or in fact identified the neural substrates involved in the processing of cognitive information. In this review, an overview of the currently available studies addressing the joint research topics of cognitive behaviour and neuroscience in teleosts (and elasmobranchs wherever possible) is provided, primarily focusing on two fundamentally different but complementary approaches, i.e. ablation studies and Immediate Early Gene (IEG) analyses. More recently, the latter technique has become one of the most promising methods to visualize neuronal populations activated in specific brain areas, both during a variety of cognitive as well as non-cognition-related tasks. While IEG studies may be more elegant and potentially easier to conduct, only lesion studies can help researchers find out what information animals can learn or recall prior to and following ablation of a particular brain area.
在过去的几十年中，已经表明鱼类，包括最大的脊椎动物群体，在许多方面是研究最少的动物之一，拥有许多与鸟类和哺乳动物相当的认知能力。尽管有大量的行为研究评估认知能力，以及丰富的神经解剖学研究，但只有少数研究旨在或实际上确定参与认知信息处理的神经基质。在这篇综述中，提供了目前关于硬骨鱼类（如有可能，也包括软骨鱼类）认知行为和神经科学联合研究课题的研究概述，主要侧重于两种截然不同但互补的方法，即消融研究和即时早期基因（IEG）分析。最近，后者已成为可视化特定脑区在各种认知和非认知相关任务中激活的神经元群体的最有前途的方法之一。虽然 IEG 研究可能更优雅，并且潜在地更容易进行，但只有损伤研究才能帮助研究人员在特定脑区被消融前后找出动物可以学习或回忆的信息。
