Search results for "Pallium"
showing 8 items of 8 documents
Evolution of Pallial Areas and Networks Involved in Sociality: Comparison Between Mammals and Sauropsids
2019
Birds are extremely interesting animals for studying the neurobiological basis of cognition and its evolution. They include species that are highly social and show high cognitive capabilities. Moreover, birds rely more on visual and auditory cues than on olfaction for social behavior and cognition, just like primates. In primates, there are two major brain networks associated to sociality: (1) one related to perception and decision-making, involving the pallial amygdala (with the basolateral complex as a major component), the temporal and temporoparietal neocortex, and the orbitofrontal cortex; (2) another one related to affiliation, including the medial extended amygdala, the ventromedial …
Expression of regulatory genes in the embryonic brain of a lizard and implications for understanding pallial organization and evolution
2017
The comparison of gene expression patterns in the embryonic brain of mouse and chicken is being essential for understanding pallial organization. However, the scarcity of gene expression data in reptiles, crucial for understanding evolution, makes it difficult to identify homologues of pallial divisions in different amniotes. We cloned and analyzed the expression of the genes Emx1, Lhx2, Lhx9, and Tbr1 in the embryonic telencephalon of the lacertid lizard Psammodromus algirus. The comparative expression patterns of these genes, critical for pallial development, are better understood when using a recently proposed six-part model of pallial divisions. The lizard medial pallium, expressing all…
Neurons in the pigeon caudolateral nidopallium differentiate Pavlovian conditioned stimuli but not their associated reward value in a sign-tracking p…
2016
AbstractAnimals exploit visual information to identify objects, form stimulus-reward associations, and prepare appropriate behavioral responses. The nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL), an associative region of the avian endbrain, contains neurons exhibiting prominent response modulation during presentation of reward-predicting visual stimuli, but it is unclear whether neural activity represents valuation signals, stimulus properties, or sensorimotor contingencies. To test the hypothesis that NCL neurons represent stimulus value, we subjected pigeons to a Pavlovian sign-tracking paradigm in which visual cues predicted rewards differing in magnitude (large vs. small) and delay to presentation (s…
Evolution of the Amygdala in Vertebrates
2007
The main aim of this article is to identify the homologues of the different components of the mammalian amygdala in the cerebral hemispheres of non-mammals using, primarily, a topological/embryological perspective. Thus, we first consider two main divisions of the amygdala of mammals, namely the pallial and subpallial (striatopallidal) amygdala. The pallial amygdala includes derivatives of both the lateral and ventral embryonic pallium that in the adult conform layered, superficial areas usually called cortical amygdala, and deep nuclei that conform the basolateral division of the amygdala plus the amygdalohippocampal area (AHA). The components of the subpallial amygdala are usually grouped…
Blocking NMDA-receptors in the pigeon's "prefrontal" caudal nidopallium impairs appetitive extinction learning in a sign-tracking paradigm
2015
Extinction learning provides the ability to flexibly adapt to new contingencies by learning to inhibit previously acquired associations in a context-dependent manner. The neural networks underlying extinction learning were mostly studied in rodents using fear extinction paradigms. To uncover invariant properties of the neural basis of extinction learning, we employ pigeons as a model system. Since the prefrontal cortex of mammals is a key structure for extinction learning, we assessed the role of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) in the nidopallium caudolaterale, the avian functional equivalent of mammalian prefrontal cortex. Since NMDARs in prefrontal cortex have been shown to be rel…
Working memory performance is tied to stimulus complexity
2021
1. Summary Working memory is the cognitive capability to maintain and process information over short periods. Recent behavioral and computational studies have shown that increased visual information of the presented stimulus material is associated with enhanced working memory performance. However, the underlying neural correlates of this association are unknown. To identify how stimuli of different visual information levels affect working memory performance, we conducted behavioral experiments and single unit recordings in the avian analog of the prefrontal cortex, the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL). On the behavioral level, we confirmed that feature-rich complex stimuli demonstrated highe…
Neurons in the pigeon nidopallium caudolaterale signal the selection and execution of perceptual decisions
2014
Sensory systems provide organisms with information on the current status of the environment, thus enabling adaptive behavior. The neural mechanisms by which sensory information is exploited for action selection are typically studied with mammalian subjects performing perceptual decision-making tasks, and most of what is known about these mechanisms at the single-neuron level is derived from cortical recordings in behaving monkeys. To explore the generality of neural mechanisms underlying perceptual decision making across species, we recorded single-neuron activity in the pigeon nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL), a non-laminated associative forebrain structure thought to be functionally equiva…
Two interconnected functional systems in the amygdala of amniote vertebrates.
2008
The amygdala shows ventropallial and lateropallial derivatives that can be compared among vertebrates according to their topological position, either superficial (cortical amygdala) or deep (basolateral amygdala and amygdalo-hippocampal area), connections and histochemical features. On the other hand, the subpallial amygdala, also called extended amygdala, is composed of medial and central divisions. In mammals, both divisions consist of an intra-amygdaloid portion and a part of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. In non-mammals, the intratelencephalic trajectory of the stria terminalis is short and both poles of the extended amygdala are close together. Like its mammalian counterpart,…