AVIAN SPATIAL MEMORY-IS FUNCTION OF THE HIPPOCAMPUS UNIVERSAL?-

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Following 6 experiments were carried out to identify functions of hippocampus in pigeons. Experiment 1: The birds were trained on spatial autodiscrimination or color autodiscrimination. The huppocampal damages impaired acquisition of the spatial autodiscrimination but not that of the color autodiscrimination. However, the hippocampal ablation did not cause deficits of maintenance of the discrimination. Experiment 2: Effects of hippocampal damages on acquisition of spatial discrimination were examined with repeated acquisition procedure using three key discrimination. The hippocampal damages caused deficits in the acquisition, however, the deficits could not be observed when color cue was added. Experiment 3: The pigeons were trained on DRL10sec then received the hippocampal lesions. The analysis of IRT distribution showed that the lesions did not cause severe deficits. Experiment 4: pigeons were trained on delayed alternation with two keys. The hippocampal damages did not impair the performance. Experiment 5: The hippocampal lesion, either before or after the training, did not impair the learning of conditional discrimination in which color on both keys determined correct key. Experiment 6: Negative pattering, in which each element associated with reward but combination of them did not, is a type of configurational discrimination. Pigeons were trained on a negative patterning discrimination. The hippocampal lesions did not show clear effects on the discriminative behavior of this task. In summary, the hippocampus has a crucial role in acquisition of long-term spatial memory in pigeons.