Topic: nidopallium caudolaterale

The nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) of the avian brain is a functional analogue of the mammalian prefrontal cortex. It plays a central role in different types of associative learning, including conditioning and extinction learning. The NCL receives a dense innervation of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) immunopositive fibers, which form characteristic basket formations around their target somata. This distinctive innervation profile enabled the identification of the NCL in pigeons, chickens, zebra finches, crows and blackcaps. In this study, we characterized the catecholaminergic system of the Japane

The identification of a conspecific is an ecologically relevant task. In primates, face selective neurons are found in the inferior temporal cortex, a region along the ventral visual pathway that displays complex feature coding. However, studies that characterized the avian equivalent to the ventral visual pathway (tectofugal pathway), using images as stimuli, found no evidence of complex feature coding nor conspecific face selectivity. In this study, we used a set of naturalistic videos with controlled lower-level features to assess if the pigeon’s tectofugal pathway encode categorical repres

Multitasking can be described as a form of goal-directed behaviour that relies on the integration and sequential execution of several different tasks for successful completion of an overarching goal. It has been shown that the parallel activation of multiple tasks leads to less efficient behaviour compared to doing tasks one after another. In humans, a widespread network of frontal and basal ganglia areas have been associated with this type of behaviour. However, it is still unknown how multitasking manifests itself on cellular level. Pigeons are able to show this type of behaviour and exhibit