07-03-2018, 09:53 PM
Just to clarify, (for anyone who might read this thread) this is the original study;
Behroozi, M., Billings, B. K., Helluy, X., Manger, P. R., Güntürkün, O., and Ströckens, F., (2018). Functional MRI in the Nile crocodile: a new avenue for evolutionary neurobiology. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 285, (1877).
The link to the full study can be found here:
http://www.bio.psy.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pa...20fMRI.pdf
The problem with blogs is that because they're relaying on information that's second hand, or sometimes from other blogs, its easy for information to get slightly misconstrued, in this instance there's an over-focus on the fact that music was used for the study.
The study wasn't about response to music but to investigate the functional aspects of the brain to further understand the evolutionary neurobiology of amniotes and the investigation of shared and divergent features.
The abstract reads:...
"Crocodilians are important for understanding the evolutionary history of amniote neural systems as they are the nearest extant relatives of modern birds and share a stem amniote ancestor with mammals. Although the crocodilian brain has been investigated anatomically, functional studies are rare."
So we're aware that structurally there are some differences between reptiles, mammals and birds, particularly notable is how basic in structure the reptilian brain is compared to the more complex structuring of bird and mammals brains but functionality was still not known before the results of this study. The sub-telencephalic sensory regions have remained similar in structure and function in all vertebrates. The telencephalon, however, has undergone significant modifications, leading to a layered, cortical organisation of the pallium in mammals and a non-layered, nuclear pallium in birds. Due to their anatomical differences investigation into how this region functioned was conducted as it was not known if functionality was the same as there were quite a few anatomical differences. The abstract continues...
"Here, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), never tested in poikilotherms, to investigate crocodilian telencephalic sensory processing. Juvenile Crocodylus niloticus were placed in a 7 T MRI scanner to record blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes during the presentation of visual and auditory stimuli. Visual stimulation increased BOLD signals in rostral to mid-caudal portions of the dorso-lateral anterior dorsal ventricular ridge (ADVR). Simple auditory stimuli led to signal increase in the rostromedial and caudocentral ADVR. These activation patterns are in line with previously described projection fields of diencephalic sensory fibres. Furthermore, complex auditory stimuli activated additional regions of the caudomedial ADVR. The recruitment of these additional, presumably higher-order, sensory areas reflects observations made in birds and mammals. Our results indicate that structural and functional aspects of sensory processing have been likely conserved during the evolution of sauropsids. In addition, our study shows that fMRI can be used to investigate neural processing in poikilotherms, providing a new avenue for neurobiological research in these critical species."
The reason why simple and complex sound was used is because the brain doesn't process these different sounds the same way. The introduction reads:
"In both classes (mammals and birds), sensory information reaching the pallium is processed in a hierarchical fashion, with relatively simple stimuli activating downstream, or lower-order, regions within the sensory pallium, while presentation of more complex stimuli leads to the recruitment of additional higher-order regions upstream. Consequently, simple auditory stimuli, like pure tones, only activate auditory core regions within the temporal lobe of primates or the nidopallial Field L of songbirds, while more complex stimuli, like music or vocalizations, also activate the temporal belt and parabelt regions in primates and the caudomedial nidopallium (NCM) in birds. These functional similarities appear to have been conserved despite the obvious gross anatomical differences of the telencephalon between these classes and the phylogenetic distance between them."
Even though the study wasn't specifically about reptilian appreciation for music it was still an interesting and important study for understanding the evolutionary history of amniotes.
Behroozi, M., Billings, B. K., Helluy, X., Manger, P. R., Güntürkün, O., and Ströckens, F., (2018). Functional MRI in the Nile crocodile: a new avenue for evolutionary neurobiology. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 285, (1877).
The link to the full study can be found here:
http://www.bio.psy.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pa...20fMRI.pdf
The problem with blogs is that because they're relaying on information that's second hand, or sometimes from other blogs, its easy for information to get slightly misconstrued, in this instance there's an over-focus on the fact that music was used for the study.
The study wasn't about response to music but to investigate the functional aspects of the brain to further understand the evolutionary neurobiology of amniotes and the investigation of shared and divergent features.
The abstract reads:...
"Crocodilians are important for understanding the evolutionary history of amniote neural systems as they are the nearest extant relatives of modern birds and share a stem amniote ancestor with mammals. Although the crocodilian brain has been investigated anatomically, functional studies are rare."
So we're aware that structurally there are some differences between reptiles, mammals and birds, particularly notable is how basic in structure the reptilian brain is compared to the more complex structuring of bird and mammals brains but functionality was still not known before the results of this study. The sub-telencephalic sensory regions have remained similar in structure and function in all vertebrates. The telencephalon, however, has undergone significant modifications, leading to a layered, cortical organisation of the pallium in mammals and a non-layered, nuclear pallium in birds. Due to their anatomical differences investigation into how this region functioned was conducted as it was not known if functionality was the same as there were quite a few anatomical differences. The abstract continues...
"Here, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), never tested in poikilotherms, to investigate crocodilian telencephalic sensory processing. Juvenile Crocodylus niloticus were placed in a 7 T MRI scanner to record blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes during the presentation of visual and auditory stimuli. Visual stimulation increased BOLD signals in rostral to mid-caudal portions of the dorso-lateral anterior dorsal ventricular ridge (ADVR). Simple auditory stimuli led to signal increase in the rostromedial and caudocentral ADVR. These activation patterns are in line with previously described projection fields of diencephalic sensory fibres. Furthermore, complex auditory stimuli activated additional regions of the caudomedial ADVR. The recruitment of these additional, presumably higher-order, sensory areas reflects observations made in birds and mammals. Our results indicate that structural and functional aspects of sensory processing have been likely conserved during the evolution of sauropsids. In addition, our study shows that fMRI can be used to investigate neural processing in poikilotherms, providing a new avenue for neurobiological research in these critical species."
The reason why simple and complex sound was used is because the brain doesn't process these different sounds the same way. The introduction reads:
"In both classes (mammals and birds), sensory information reaching the pallium is processed in a hierarchical fashion, with relatively simple stimuli activating downstream, or lower-order, regions within the sensory pallium, while presentation of more complex stimuli leads to the recruitment of additional higher-order regions upstream. Consequently, simple auditory stimuli, like pure tones, only activate auditory core regions within the temporal lobe of primates or the nidopallial Field L of songbirds, while more complex stimuli, like music or vocalizations, also activate the temporal belt and parabelt regions in primates and the caudomedial nidopallium (NCM) in birds. These functional similarities appear to have been conserved despite the obvious gross anatomical differences of the telencephalon between these classes and the phylogenetic distance between them."
Even though the study wasn't specifically about reptilian appreciation for music it was still an interesting and important study for understanding the evolutionary history of amniotes.
