| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
TSUTSUI Kazuyoshi Hiroshima University, Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Professor, 総合科学部, 教授 (20163842)
AOKI Kiyoshi Sophia University, Faculty of Science and Technology, Professor, 理工学部, 教授 (70101029)
|
|---|
| Research Abstract |
In this project, we studied cognitive functions and the underlying brain mechanisms of memory formation and behavioral control in newly hatched quail/domestic chicks. A series of experimental researches, ranging from behavioral analyses, through, neurophysiological studies of synapses and neuronal properties such as long-term potentiation/depression, molecular mechanisms like immediate early gene expression(c-fos and ZENK), toward the system neuroscience with single unit recording from freely behaving chicks. These studies were accomplished in a close joint activities between Hungarian and Japanese attendant scientists.
Following researches were performed.
1. Behavioral studies : Development of novel learning tasks and analysis of the memory contents.
2. Physiological studies of the elementary memory process : Synaptic long-term potentiation and immediate early genes.
3. System neuroscience studies of the cellular expression of memory
These studies gave us an idea that birds, who have diverged from the evolutionary path from mammals several hundreds of million years ago, are endowed with basically identical cognitive process as mammals(even primates)possess. Comparative Cognitive Brain Science serves the unique strategy for elucidating the origin of "intelligence."
|
