Comments on: Mental Maps in Sharks https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/ Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:06:42 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: Sarah https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500057 Thu, 03 Mar 2011 16:06:42 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500057 Hi !
Thank you for the article and all your site, I really like it and had a nice time reading everything 🙂
If you want you can check my site too (http://www.devilandgod.com/) to discuss about philosophy.

]]> By: bcoppola https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500056 Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:55:36 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500056 Shark 1: Whaddya say we head over to La Turista beach for lunch? It’s only about 25k away.

Shark 2: You mean the one where you take a right at that big elkhorn coral just after the shipwreck?

Shark 1: Yeah, remember? We shared a swimmer’s leg there last year!

Shark 2: Oh, yeah, they’re tasty this time of year! I am so there!

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500055 Thu, 03 Mar 2011 01:31:28 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500055 Every peer reviewed paper has as story behind it. But most of the stories are not that interesting.

]]> By: Iain https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500054 Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:43:39 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500054 O’Gower, K. 1995 Speculations on a Spatial Memory for the Port Jackson Shark (Heterodontus portusjacksoni) (Meyer) (Heterodontidae). Marine and freshwater research 46:861-871.

]]> By: Iain https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500053 Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:24:58 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500053 One of my proud boast from my teaching days is an acknowledgment on a paper about mental maps in sharks–Port Jackson sharks in and around Sydney Harbour. I had a student who had taken a medical retirement after a reduced oxygen supply during an operation. He had been a Professor of Zoology (Ken O’Gower) and found it frustrating to have such reduced mental function so he became a distance education student with us and ended up getting a BA majoring in Archaeology). One of the units he took was my unit on language origins when I was at my most fierce about the cognitive implications of language (which included a scepticism about the mental maps literature–not my proudest moment). He told me of his data on mental maps (spatial memory) in Port Jackson sharks and I asked where it was published. He said it was not, but was stimulated by my scepticism to publish a paper. I must say I think the mental maps data on chimps is remarkably convincing. And I am now much more relaxed about the whole thing, and presumably the capacity to embed a GPS chip in a variety of animals will enable us to get huge amounts more data, so it will be seen to be the primitive feature that the shark data implies.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500052 Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:24:04 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500052 Sam,yes, as I understand it. This is all word of mouth, as it were, at the moment.

]]> By: Sam N https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500051 Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:24:58 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500051 Much of this map work done in rats is by recording from neurons in the hippocampus while the rat runs through a maze. Neurons called, ‘place cells’, will respond only at particular places in the maze.

If you keep recording from such neurons while the rat rests, you can see the place cells reactivate in a sequence as though the rat was running through the maze.

I haven’t read any papers dealing specifically with the activity of these neurons when the rat is faced with a decision, my best guess from Greg’s post is that they found place cells for the upcoming portion of the maze activating in sequence when the rat approached a place in the maze where it branches and the rat needs to decide which way to go.

]]> By: rob https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500050 Wed, 02 Mar 2011 18:39:43 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/03/02/mental-maps-in-sharks/#comment-500050 as a physicist i wonder just how they determine things like this. what, you ask the rat/shark what it is thinking?

pretty cool, but very hard to interpret i would think.

suppose i should look up the papers, eh?

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