engleski

The hippocampus of turtles and lizards

The hippocampus is a small region of the brain and is primarily associated with memory and spatial navigation in mammals and birds, whereas in reptiles the homologous structure of the hippocampus represents the medial cortex. In this paper, we will compare the histological structure of the medial cortex in two representatives of reptiles, lizards and turtles, using published literature. Depending on their histological differences, we will study their capabilities of spatial navigation and memory. Lizards' cytostructure is strictly trilaminar, each layer has its own characteristics but the most important is that the middle layer contains most of the neuronal cell bodies. Histological structure of the medial cortex in turtles differs from the one in lizards because it consists of three major divisions rather than two divisions found in lizards. Due to the dispersion of the cell bodies in depth, the medial cortex is not as uniformly trilaminar. According to the latest research despite the differences in their histological structure, both lizards and turtles have abilities in spatial navigation which is connected to memory and together they contribute to the creation of a cognitive map.

reptiles, hippocampus, cytostructure, spatial navigation

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