The Neurobiology of Spatial Behaviour

Edited by Kathryn J. Jeffrey (2003)

Oxford University Press

ISBN 0198515243, pp316 (hardcover) £69.50

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You always know you are in trouble when the book review editor collars you at the PSGB Winter meeting with a set of books she cannot find reviewers for. These are usually the books that relate to the more experimental areas of primatology and often do not mention anything specifically about primates in the title. Such is the case with The neurobiology of spatial behaviour, however it claims to be "essential reading for anyone who is curious about how human and non-human animals find their way about, and how space is represented in the brain". Given my interest in how animals move about in their environments this sounded like just the sort of book it would do me good to read.

The book is divided into two sections. The first concentrating more of behavioural experiments that look at the spatial competencies of a variety of animals and what this can tell us about the proximate methods they can use to find their way around the environment. This includes path integration (also known as dead reckoning) which is independent of environmental cues; and environmentally dependent methods that are categorised by their presumed cognitive requirements with taxis (toward or away from a stimulus) at the bottom of the scale to internalised memory maps at the top. The second section concentrates on the cellular mechanisms that underlie behavioural responses and representations and also includes more theoretical computational approaches.

Part 1, From behaviour to circuitry starts with the obligatory review of the field laying out the theoretical framework and the major experimental paradigms that are going to be explored later on. This chapter is very readable and would be worth putting on the reading list for more general ethology students. However the book gets rapidly more technical with a set of nice experimental studies on insect navigation looking at both path integration and environmental cuing and their effects on spatial beahviour. For a primatologist this is perhaps of limited interest but the second half of this section moves onto mammals with rats in various mazes being the major experimental approach. In chapter 6, Do animals use maps? we are introduced to a wide variety of field studies of animal spatial behaviour and the benefits of having a cognitive map are reviewed however the conclusion (familiar to primate biologists) is that there is currently "little evidence to support the possession or use of cognitive maps". Primates only really get a mention in the last two chapters in this section which concentrate on experiments on human navigation although with a refreshingly comparative approach with human abilities likened to those of ants, bees and rodents.

Part 2, From circuits to cells, also has a short introduction warning that this half of the book is "devoted to an exploration of the (putative) neural basis of the mammalian spatial representation". The key words here are exploration and putative because it is quite clear that there are currently few firm conclusions that can be made even after a great deal of work and copious theorising. Employment prospects in neuroscience seem secure for many years to come (this level of uncertainty is equally familiar to many branches of primatology from palaeontologists to ecologists). The first 4 chapters concentrate on the role of the hippocampus in mapping and spatial behaviour - it is clearly involved and a lot of single cell recording experiments confirm this but we are a long way from knowing exactly how. The nature of the experiments mean that the majority of this work has been carried out using rats. The last 4 chapters are more theoretical concentrating on how navigation could work and the implications of theories of spatial representation in the context of current experimental data - again primarily rat based.

In conclusion whilst it no doubt did do me good to read it there is relatively little for a general primatologist in this book. The first half would be useful for more general behavioural biologists but very rarely mentions primates as examples - probably because there are better data for non-primates in both laboratory and field settings. On the Move: How and Why Animals Travel in Groups by Boinski and Garber is a much better source if you want to find out about primate navigational capabilities. The second half of the book is much more firmly focused at neuroscientists and is really only suitable for a fairly specialist audience. As such whilst this would be a useful book for someone who wants an up to date review of animal navigation from a neuroscience perspective I do not think it will be on many people's christmas list for general primatological bedtime reading. One for the library to buy I think!

Bill Sellers

University of Manchester