Navigating Through an Asymmetrical Brain: Lateralisation and Homing in Pigeon

Pecchia, Tommaso; Gagliardo, Anna; Filannino, Caterina; Ioalè, Paolo; Vallortígara, Giorgio

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-30203-9_8

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 102 publications

(127 reference statements)

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“…For this reason, lateralisation phenomena in birds can be easily investigated by covering one eye so as to largely exclude the involvement of the contralateral hemisphere. Therefore, the birds' visual system became the subject of investigation for the study of brain functional asymmetries in several contexts such as, imprinting, social recognition, visual learning and spatial cognition [2,[6][7][8][9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is There Visual Lateralisation of the Sun Compass in Homing Pigeons?

2020

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Functional lateralisation in the avian visual system can be easily studied by testing monocularly occluded birds. The sun compass is a critical source of navigational information in birds, but studies of visual asymmetry have focussed on cues in a laboratory rather than a natural setting. We investigate functional lateralisation of sun compass use in the visual system of homing pigeons trained to locate food in an outdoor octagonal arena, with a coloured beacon in each sector and a view of the sun. The arena was rotated to introduce a cue conflict, and the experimental groups, a binocular treatment and two monocular treatments, were tested for their directional choice. We found no significant difference in test orientation between the treatments, with all groups showing evidence of both sun compass and beacon use, suggesting no complete functional lateralisation of sun compass use within the visual system. However, reduced directional consistency of binocular vs. monocular birds may reveal a conflict between the two hemispheres in a cue conflict condition. Birds using the right hemisphere were more likely to choose the intermediate sector between the training sector and the shifted training beacon, suggesting a possible asymmetry in favour of the left eye/right hemisphere (LE/RH) when integrating different cues.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is There Visual Lateralisation of the Sun Compass in Homing Pigeons?

2020

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“…Functional lateralisation in homing pigeons engaged in spatial tasks has been the subject of investigation in both natural and semi-natural settings (Pecchia et al 2013 ). While the olfactory system is critically involved when pigeons are challenged to navigate over distant unfamiliar areas (Papi 1976 ; Wallraff 2005 ; Bonadonna and Gagliardo 2021 ), the visual system is importantly engaged for sun compass orientation (Schmidt-Koenig 1990 ) and familiar landmark-based navigation (Biro et al 2004 ; Guilford and Biro 2014 ; Gagliardo et al 2020 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of the sun compass by monocularly occluded homing pigeons in a food localisation task in an outdoor arena

Cioccarelli,

Bianchi,

Giunchi

et al. 2023

Anim Cogn

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Functional asymmetries of the avian visual system can be studied in monocularly occluded birds, as their hemispheres are largely independent. Right and left monocularly occluded homing pigeons and control birds under binocular view have been trained in a food localisation task in an octagonal outdoor arena provided with one coloured beacon on each wall. The three groups were tested after the removal of the visual beacons, so to assess their sun compass learning abilities. Pigeons using the left eye/right hemisphere system exhibited slower learning compared to the other monocular group. During the test in the arena void of visual beacons, the three groups of birds, regardless of their visual condition, were generally able to identify the training sector by exclusively relying on sun compass information. However, the directional choices of the pigeons with the left eye/right hemisphere in use were significantly affected by the removal of the beacons, while both control pigeons and birds with the right eye/left hemisphere in use displayed unaltered performances during the test. A subsample of pigeons of each group were re-trained in the octagonal arena with visual beacons present and tested after the removal of visual beacons after a 6 h fast clock-shift treatment. All birds displayed the expected deflection consistent to the sun compass use. While birds using either the left or the right visual systems were equally able to learn a sun compass-mediated spatial task, the left eye/right hemisphere visual system displayed an advantage in relying on visual beacons.

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“…Functional asymmetries have also been found for spatial tasks involving memorization and processing of cues in both laboratory settings and natural behaviours, such as homing [ 15 ]. In particular, the functional contribution of the left and right side of the brain in homing behaviour has been the subject of experiments focusing on the hippocampal formation and olfactory and visual systems [ 15 , 16 ]. Although both the left and right parts of the hippocampal formation seem to be involved in familiar landmark-based navigation [ 17 ], an intact left hippocampus is needed for olfactory map learning in young pigeons raised confined [ 18 ], probably due to the critical role of the left hippocampus in sun compass-mediated spatial learning [ 19 ] through which the association of wind-born odours with wind direction is memorized.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetric visual input and route recapitulation in homing pigeons

et al. 2015

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Pigeons (Columba livia) display reliable homing behaviour, but their homing routes from familiar release points are individually idiosyncratic and tightly recapitulated, suggesting that learning plays a role in route establishment. In light of the fact that routes are learned, and that both ascending and descending visual pathways share visual inputs from each eye asymmetrically to the brain hemispheres, we investigated how information from each eye contributes to route establishment, and how information input is shared between left and right neural systems. Using on-board global positioning system loggers, we tested 12 pigeons' route fidelity when switching from learning a route with one eye to homing with the other, and back, in an A-B-A design. Two groups of birds, trained first with the left or first with the right eye, formed new idiosyncratic routes after switching eyes, but those that flew first with the left eye formed these routes nearer to their original routes. This confirms that vision plays a major role in homing from familiar sites and exposes a behavioural consequence of neuroanatomical asymmetry whose ontogeny is better understood than its functional significance.

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Navigating Through an Asymmetrical Brain: Lateralisation and Homing in Pigeon

Cited by 6 publications

References 102 publications

Is There Visual Lateralisation of the Sun Compass in Homing Pigeons?

Is There Visual Lateralisation of the Sun Compass in Homing Pigeons?

Use of the sun compass by monocularly occluded homing pigeons in a food localisation task in an outdoor arena

Asymmetric visual input and route recapitulation in homing pigeons

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