Center for Mind/Brain Science, University of Trento, Rovereto 38068, Italy.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Aug 9;119(32):e2201039119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2201039119. Epub 2022 Aug 2.
Numerical cognition is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom. Domestic chicks are a widely used developmental model for studying numerical cognition. Soon after hatching, chicks can perform sophisticated numerical tasks. Nevertheless, the neural basis of their numerical abilities has remained unknown. Here, we describe number neurons in the caudal nidopallium (functionally equivalent to the mammalian prefrontal cortex) of young domestic chicks. Number neurons that we found in young chicks showed remarkable similarities to those in the prefrontal cortex and caudal nidopallium of adult animals. Thus, our results suggest that numerosity perception based on number neurons might be an inborn feature of the vertebrate brain.
数量认知在动物界中普遍存在。雏鸡是研究数量认知的一种广泛应用的发育模型。雏鸡在孵化后不久就能完成复杂的数量任务。然而，它们的数量能力的神经基础仍然未知。在这里，我们描述了幼小鸡的尾状核（功能等同于哺乳动物的前额叶皮层）中的数量神经元。我们在幼小鸡中发现的数量神经元与成年动物的前额叶皮层和尾状核中的数量神经元表现出惊人的相似性。因此，我们的结果表明，基于数量神经元的数量感知可能是脊椎动物大脑的一种与生俱来的特征。
