Learning and cognition in amphibians

MUZIO, R. N., PUDDINGTON, M. M., SOTELO, M. I. & DANERI, F.

Bogotá

Congreso; XVIIth Biannual Meeting of the International Society for Comparative Psychology (ISCP).; 2014

International Society for Comparative Psychology

Amphibian brain organization shows more simple structures than those observed in mammals (e.g., without neocortex), and thus is potentially similar to the brains of the ancestors phylogenetically ancient vertebrates. In this sense, as early settlers of the land, amphibian model offer an exceptional possibility to find basic neural mechanisms of a wide variety of behaviors shared with others modern vertebrates, but without a strong cortical modulation. This talk includes three specific procedures in amphibians (runway, spatial learning and aversive conditioning) that we developed in our laboratory to study different aspects of learning, both appetitive as aversive, and their neural basis. First, learning in a runway situation, in which the medial pallium (homologous of the mammalian hippocampus) is involved in the extinction of the response. Second, spatial learning, where medial pallium also play an essential role. Finally, passive avoidance learning, using highly saline solutions as aversive stimuli, where the homologous area of the amygdale is involved. Overall, the study of amphibian model is giving us clues about the basic neural mechanisms of these learned behaviors, which are characters shown highly conserved along evolution.