Neuronal Correlates of Spatial Working Memory in the Endbrain of Crows

Current Biology : CB
Paul RinnertAndreas Nieder

Abstract

Birds are renowned for their excellent spatial cognition. Corvid songbirds, in particular, rely on explicit representation of spatial cues in memory when caching food and retrieving caches for later consumption. However, the neuronal correlates of flexible spatial memory abilities are largely unknown in birds. We therefore trained carrion crows (Corvus corone) on a spatial delayed-response task in which they had to maintain the variable location of a visual item for a few seconds in working memory. After the crows performed this task with high precision, we recorded single-cell activity from the associative endbrain area Nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) in the behaving crows. A large fraction of NCL neurons were tuned to individual preferred locations and selectively maintained the spatial location of items in working memory. A comparison of firing rates with reaction times suggested that the majority of delay-selective neurons represented stored location information rather than motor preparation. Almost 30% of all recorded neurons were tuned during both visual presentation and memory delay, and their spatial tuning was significantly correlated. The population of recorded neurons stably maintained spatial information over the co...Continue Reading

Citations

Jun 9, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Irene M Pepperberg
Jan 22, 2021·The Journal of Comparative Neurology·Ylva KerstenAndreas Nieder
Mar 17, 2021·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Andreas Nieder
May 1, 2021·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Andreas Nieder
May 12, 2021·Current Biology : CB·Elhanan Ben-YishayYoram Gutfreund

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