Abstract

SOTELO, María Inés  and  MUZIO, Rubén Néstor. Aprendizaje espacial y geometría. Los anfibios en la evolución de los sistemas cognitivos cerebrales. Rev Arg Cs Comp. [online]. 2015, vol.7, n.3, pp.64-78. ISSN 1852-4206.

Spatial Learning and Geometry. Amphibians in the Evolution of the Brain Cognitive Systems. This article presents a comparative review of the works that have studied the spatial learning in vertebrates using geometry information and visual cues from the environment. We describe experiments conducted in our laboratory showing spatial navigation learning in amphibians and their dependence on a functional medial pallium (homologous area to the mammalian hippocampus). The results indicate that these animals use both the information provided by the geometry as visual cues, but when both types of reference are presented in conflict they prefer geometry to orient (as results found in amniotes). Broadly, these findings suggest that the ability to orient in space is a characteristic evolutionarily preserved and support the idea that the role of the hippocampus in spatial cognition precedes the evolution of fully terrestrial vertebrates.

Keywords : learning and geometry; Amphibians; Medial pallium; Hippocampus; Evolution of brain cognitive systems.