“Brain-Behavior Relationships of Cognition in Vertebrates: Lessons from Amphibians”

The evolution and diversity of vertebrate cognition captivate behavioral biologists, yet research has largely focused on mammals and birds, leaving gaps in understanding brain-behavior relationships across vertebrates. Amphibian brains differ significantly from those of amniotes in complexity and neural connections, yet their cognitive implications are rarely explored. For instance, amphibian palliums are structurally simpler, receive less sensory information, and have fewer descending connections, which may limit behavioral flexibility and complex sensory associations. Studies indicate that amphibians predominantly engage in response learning, controlled by the subpallium, rather than allocentric spatial navigation. Although landmark learning is common, complex spatial associations seem limited, possibly due to constraints in the medial pallium’s sensory representation. Amphibians can modify learned responses through habituation and extinction, but species vary in their ability to reverse visual discriminations. Notably, the parental poison frog, Dendrobates auratus, exhibits both spatial and higher-order contingency learning, akin to hippocampal functions in mammals. Investigating the neurobiological underpinnings of D. auratus may reveal vital insights into the evolution of cognition in vertebrates.