| Title |
In contrast to many other mammals, cetaceans have relatively small hippocampi that appear to lack adult neurogenesis
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Brain Structure and Function, November 2013
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s00429-013-0660-1 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Nina Patzke, Muhammad A. Spocter, Karl Æ. Karlsson, Mads F. Bertelsen, Mark Haagensen, Richard Chawana, Sonja Streicher, Consolate Kaswera, Emmanuel Gilissen, Abdulaziz N. Alagaili, Osama B. Mohammed, Roger L. Reep, Nigel C. Bennett, Jerry M. Siegel, Amadi O. Ihunwo, Paul R. Manger |
| Abstract |
The hippocampus is essential for the formation and retrieval of memories and is a crucial neural structure sub-serving complex cognition. Adult hippocampal neurogenesis, the birth, migration and integration of new neurons, is thought to contribute to hippocampal circuit plasticity to augment function. We evaluated hippocampal volume in relation to brain volume in 375 mammal species and examined 71 mammal species for the presence of adult hippocampal neurogenesis using immunohistochemistry for doublecortin, an endogenous marker of immature neurons that can be used as a proxy marker for the presence of adult neurogenesis. We identified that the hippocampus in cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) is both absolutely and relatively small for their overall brain size, and found that the mammalian hippocampus scaled as an exponential function in relation to brain volume. In contrast, the amygdala was found to scale as a linear function of brain volume, but again, the relative size of the amygdala in cetaceans was small. The cetacean hippocampus lacks staining for doublecortin in the dentate gyrus and thus shows no clear signs of adult hippocampal neurogenesis. This lack of evidence of adult hippocampal neurogenesis, along with the small hippocampus, questions current assumptions regarding cognitive abilities associated with hippocampal function in the cetaceans. These anatomical features of the cetacean hippocampus may be related to the lack of postnatal sleep, causing a postnatal cessation of hippocampal neurogenesis. |
X Demographics
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Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 17 | 44% |
| Canada | 2 | 5% |
| Japan | 2 | 5% |
| Brazil | 1 | 3% |
| Spain | 1 | 3% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 3% |
| Germany | 1 | 3% |
| Iceland | 1 | 3% |
| Unknown | 13 | 33% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 31 | 79% |
| Scientists | 8 | 21% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 207 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 4 | 2% |
| Germany | 2 | <1% |
| France | 1 | <1% |
| Brazil | 1 | <1% |
| Peru | 1 | <1% |
| Faroe Islands | 1 | <1% |
| China | 1 | <1% |
| Denmark | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 195 | 94% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 34 | 16% |
| Researcher | 34 | 16% |
| Student > Master | 26 | 13% |
| Student > Bachelor | 23 | 11% |
| Other | 11 | 5% |
| Other | 34 | 16% |
| Unknown | 45 | 22% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 67 | 32% |
| Neuroscience | 36 | 17% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 13 | 6% |
| Psychology | 12 | 6% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 10 | 5% |
| Other | 17 | 8% |
| Unknown | 52 | 25% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 78. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 December 2021.
All research outputs
#552,912
of 25,550,333 outputs
Outputs from Brain Structure and Function
#22
of 2,030 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#4,520
of 227,029 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Brain Structure and Function
#4
of 23 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,550,333 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,030 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.8. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
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