Assessment of Welfare of Marine Mammal Species in Zoological Parks

Biopsychology – Cognitive capacities indicate

welfare needs

PROF. DR. ONUR GÜNTÜRKÜN

Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience,

Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany

What are the biological fundaments of cognition? Until recently

we assumed that the cerebral cortex is a conditio sine qua non for

all higher cognitive operations. Only mammals like humans have

a cortex. But now we learn that some birds are able to produce

cognitive processes that are on par with apes. The problem is that

birds have very small brains without a cortex. How is that possible?

I will argue that a) birds do not have a cortex but a pallium that is

partly homologous to that of the cortex (implication #1: cortical

lamination is not a requirement for complex cognition); b) similar

neural circuits can be found in the forebrains of birds and mammals

(implication #2: some cognitive function require certain circuits.

These then evolve convergently in practically the same way in the

different branches of evolution); c) brain size does not correlate

when comparing birds and mammals (implication #3: brain size or

neuron numbers are useless proxies for cognitive complexity when

comparing brains that have different anatomical designs). Thus,

neural fundaments for similar cognitive processes have evolved

multiple times and in parallel during evolution. The overall picture

emerging from this research is the following: There is vast extent

of difference in general brain organization between mammals and

birds, combined with an astonishing degree of parallelism in the

details of cognition and neural wiring. It seems that we have to

propose the concept of “constrained evolution” to understand

these findings. Evolution seems to have only limited degrees of

freedom to establish certain neural functions. As a consequence of

these constrains, similar solutions can be found multiple times in

the multitudes of branches of life.

Full Presentation page 32-37

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Onur Güntürkün

Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Ruhr University of Bochum

AE Biopsychologie

44780 Bochum, Germany

Tel. +49 (0) 234 32 26213

Email:

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