Abstract Recently, horses and other domestic mammals have been shown to perceive and react to human emotional signals, with most studies focusing on joy and anger. In this study, we tested whether horses can learn to identify human joyful and sad expressions against other emotions. We...
Abstract The retrosplenial cortex (RSC) is a hub of diverse afferent and efferent projections thought to be involved in associative learning. RSC shows early pathology in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which impairs associative learning. To understand and develop therapies for diseases such...
Simple Summary “How do animals perceive the world, and what are they thinking about?” To approach these questions, a method where animals face a touch screen and work on various visual tasks was used. There have not been many studies conducted on cetaceans (e.g., dolphins and...
Check out this article outlining an innovative, comprehensive solution for researchers studying behavior in ectotherms and beyond, bridging the gap between constrained laboratory settings and natural behavior in nonconventional model systems. Abstract Understanding behavior and its evolutionary underpinnings is crucial for unraveling the complexities of brain function....
In this short editorial by Sueur & Pele, enjoy learning about touchscreen use in a variety of species, including horses! "This special issue ‘Recent Advances in Animal Cognition and Ethology’, showcases a diverse array of scientific papers that exemplify this transformative journey. We invite readers to...
Abstract Rationale. Atypical attention orienting has been associated with some autistic symptoms, but the neural mechanisms remain unclear. The human Posner task, a classic attention orienting paradigm, was recently adapted for use with mice, supporting the investigation of the neurobiological underpinnings of atypical attention orienting in...
Abstract Concerns about poor animal to human translation have come increasingly to the fore, in particular with regards to cognitive improvements in rodent models, which have failed to translate to meaningful clinical benefit in humans. This problem has been widely acknowledged, most recently in the field...
ABSTRACT Reversal learning measures the ability to form flexible associations between choice outcomes with stimuli and actions that precede them. This type of learning is thought to rely on several cortical and subcortical areas, including the highly interconnected orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and basolateral amygdala (BLA), and...
ABSTRACT Flexible reward learning relies on frontal cortex, with substantial evidence indicating that anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) subregions play important roles. Recent studies in both rat and macaque suggest theta oscillations (5–10 Hz) may be a spectral signature that coordinates this learning....
Abstract Attention is a cognitive domain often disrupted in neuropsychiatric disorders and continuous performance tests (CPTs) are common clinical assays of attention. In CPTs, participants produce a behavioral response to target stimuli and refrain from responding to non-target stimuli. Performance in CPTs is measured as the...