Animals’ negotiations with the environment frequently involve quantitative assessments. However, it is largely unknown how different nervous systems can deal with information about magnitude and perform operations on it. Here we review some of the literature on this topic and discuss a few issues worthy of debate that can guide future research directions. First, we present experimental evidence suggesting that, in addition to the cortical (pallial) brain regions that are widely acknowledged to play a role in magnitude estimation, subcortical (more generally, subpallial) brain regions also play an important role. Second, we discuss interactions between different domains of magnitude and put forward a hypothesis to account for the directionality of associations between discrete and continuous magnitude. Finally, we suggest how the distinction between the concepts of number and discrete quantity should foster more attention to the role of sensory areas and circuits in assessing discrete quantities.

动物与环境的谈判经常涉及定量评估。然而，在很大程度上不知道不同的神经系统如何处理有关幅度的信息并对其进行操作。在这里，我们回顾了有关该主题的一些文献，并讨论了一些值得辩论的问题，这些问题可以指导未来的研究方向。首先，我们提供的实验证据表明，除了被广泛认为在幅度估计中起作用的皮质（苍白质）大脑区域外，皮层下（更一般地，下苍白）大脑区域也起着重要作用。其次，我们讨论了不同幅度域之间的相互作用，并提出了一个假设来解释离散幅度和连续幅度之间关联的方向性。最后，