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Updated: Jul 9, 2025

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging fMRI with Auditory Stimulation in Songbirds
Published on: June 3, 2013
Convergent Circuit Computation for Categorization in the Brains of Primates and Songbirds
1Animal Physiology Unit, Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany andreas.nieder@uni-tuebingen.de.
Abstract:
Categorization is crucial for behavioral flexibility because it enables animals to group stimuli into meaningful classes that can easily be generalized to new circumstances. A most abstract quantitative category is set size, the number of elements in a set. This review explores how categorical number representations are realized by the operations of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in associative telencephalic microcircuits in primates and songbirds. Despite the independent evolution of the primate prefrontal cortex and the avian nidopallium caudolaterale, the neuronal computations of these associative pallial circuits show surprising correspondence. Comparing cellular functions in distantly related taxa can inform about the evolutionary principles of circuit computations for cognition in distinctly but convergently realized brain structures.
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