Meehan E F
Department of Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology, College of Staten Island, City University of New York 10314.
Behav Neurosci. 1996 Dec;110(6):1487-91. doi: 10.1037//0735-7044.110.6.1487.
Homing pigeon breeds, the product of artificial selection on the basis of navigational and spatial ability, differ from nonhoming breeds in hippocampal size and distribution of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) dependent receptors. The effects of MK-801 (0.1 mg/kg administered intraperitoneally), a noncompetitive NMDA antagonist, on spatial reference memory (RM) were compared between the 2 breeds in a radial arm maze task. MK-801 disrupted the acquisition of RM in the nonhoming group but not the homing group, which was equivalent to the 2 saline-only control groups. As in previous findings with mammals, working memory was not affected by MK-801. This behavioral dissociation, coupled with differences in NMDA-dependent long-term potentiation between breeds, suggests an exceptional opportunity to investigate the role and function of the dorsomedial telencephalon region in spatial RM, through anatomical, neurochemical, and behavioral comparisons between homing and nonhoming pigeon breeds.
家鸽品种是基于导航和空间能力进行人工选择的产物，在海马体大小和N-甲基-D-天冬氨酸（NMDA）依赖性受体分布方面与非家鸽品种有所不同。在放射状臂迷宫任务中，比较了非竞争性NMDA拮抗剂MK-801（腹腔注射0.1mg/kg）对这两个品种空间参考记忆（RM）的影响。MK-801干扰了非家鸽组RM的习得，但对家鸽组没有影响，家鸽组与两个仅注射生理盐水的对照组相当。与之前对哺乳动物的研究结果一样，工作记忆不受MK-801影响。这种行为上的分离，再加上品种间NMDA依赖性长时程增强的差异，为通过对家鸽和非家鸽品种进行解剖学、神经化学和行为学比较，研究背内侧端脑区域在空间RM中的作用和功能提供了一个特殊的机会。
