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Cytoarchitectural characteristics associated with cognitive flexibility in raccoons
- Source :
- Journal of Comparative Neurology. 529:3375-3388
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Wiley, 2021.
-
Abstract
- With rates of psychiatric illnesses such as depression continuing to rise, additional preclinical models are needed to facilitate translational neuroscience research. In the current study, the raccoon (Procyon lotor) was investigated due to its similarities with primate brains, including comparable proportional neuronal densities, cortical magnification of the forepaw area, and cortical gyrification. Specifically, we report on the cytoarchitectural characteristics of raccoons profiled as high, intermediate, or low solvers in a multi-access problem-solving task. Isotropic fractionation indicated that high-solvers had significantly more cells in the hippocampus (HC) than the other solving groups; further, a nonsignificant trend suggested that this increase in cell profile density was due to increased non-neuronal (e.g., glial) cells. Group differences were not observed in the cellular density of the somatosensory cortex. Thionin-based staining confirmed the presence of von Economo neurons (VENs) in the frontoinsular (FI) cortex, although no impact of solving ability on VEN cell profile density levels was observed. Elongated fusiform cells were quantified in the hippocampus dentate gyrus where high-solvers were observed to have higher levels of this cell type than the other solving groups. In sum, the current findings suggest that varying cytoarchitectural phenotypes contribute to cognitive flexibility. Additional research is necessary to determine the translational value of cytoarchitectural distribution patterns on adaptive behavioral outcomes associated with cognitive performance and mental health. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
- Subjects :
- Male
0301 basic medicine
Hippocampus
Cell Count
Biology
Somatosensory system
Translational Research, Biomedical
03 medical and health sciences
Cognition
0302 clinical medicine
Cortex (anatomy)
Cortical magnification
medicine
Animals
Gyrification
Problem Solving
Cerebral Cortex
Neurons
General Neuroscience
Dentate gyrus
Cognitive flexibility
Brain
Somatosensory Cortex
030104 developmental biology
medicine.anatomical_structure
Cytoarchitecture
Dentate Gyrus
Female
Raccoons
Neuroscience
Psychomotor Performance
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 10969861 and 00219967
- Volume :
- 529
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Comparative Neurology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....238af67838d26a1050a11616051921ca