Who needs a Hippocampus? The role of the Avian Hippocampus in Serial Order Behaviour and Temporal Discriminations

Abstract

The avian hippocampus is a functional homologue of the mammalian hippocampus. Damage to the hippocampus in both birds and mammals impairs performance on spatial tasks and generally leaves performance on non-spatial tasks unaffected. In the current study, control and hippocampal-lesioned pigeons were trained on 4-item serial order tasks, a radial arm maze analogue task and timing discrimination tasks. Hippocampal-lesioned pigeons showed no impairment on the acquisition of the 4-item serial order tasks but they were significantly impaired on the radial arm maze analogue task. Finally, hippocampal-lesioned birds showed no impairment in the ability to discriminate between the intervals ranging from one second to 12 minutes.