Detection of Magnetic Field Intensity Slope Direction by Homing Pigeons in a “Virtual Magnetic Map” during a Novel Spatial Conditioning Task
-
1
Bowling Green State Universiy, Psychology, United States
Homing pigeons are able to return to their loft from distant and unfamiliar places and have become one of the main model species to study avian navigation. It is well established that homing pigeons possess a magnetic compass to determine direction during homing, but whether or not homing pigeons also possess a magnetic map for position determination during navigation has been the subject of intense speculation for several decades. Sensitivity to changes in magnetic field intensity has long been considered a prerequisite for any position determining system utilizing the Earth’s magnetic field. Whilst it has been demonstrated that pigeons can discriminate the presence and absence of a magnetic field intensity anomaly in a conditioning task, it is not known whether pigeons are able to utilize magnetic intensity cues to solve spatial orientation tasks. In this study, six pigeons, walking inside a circular arena whilst attached to a horizontal tracker arm, were required to solve a spatial conditioning task based on magnetic intensity cues to obtain a food reward. The pigeons were required to detect the direction of a magnetic field intensity slope in a novel “virtual magnetic map” environment. Not only were the pigeons able to identify the orientation of the intensity slope, which was associated with the most rapid change in magnetic intensity, but they were able to discriminate movement upward versus downward on the slope as indicated by increasing versus decreasing intensity values. During sessions for which the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve was impaired by local anesthesia, the mean discrimination performance fell to chance level (50%), as it did during control sessions, for which the magnetic coils were turned off. Our results therefore demonstrate for the first time that pigeons are able to detect and respond to changes in magnetic field intensity in a spatial orientation task, adding magnetic sensitivity to a growing list of sensory cues that can be utilized during spatial cognition. Furthermore, such ability fulfills the basic requirements for use of magnetic intensity cues for position determination in a navigational map as previously proposed by the Walker (1998) model and provides additional evidence for the involvement of the trigeminal system in avian magntoreception. Ongoing research will involve sectioning of the trigeminal nerve to confirm transmission of magnetic information via this pathway as well as hippocampal lesions to investigate the brain regions associated with the processing of magnetic map information.
Keywords:
Cognition,
Homing,
Homing Pigeon,
Magnetoreception,
navigation,
Sensory Perception
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster (but consider for Participant Symposium)
Topic:
Orientation and Navigation
Citation:
Mora
C and
Bingman
VP
(2012). Detection of Magnetic Field Intensity Slope Direction by Homing Pigeons in a “Virtual Magnetic Map” during a Novel Spatial Conditioning Task.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00132
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
26 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Cordula Mora, Bowling Green State Universiy, Psychology, Bowling Green, Ohio, United States, cmora@bgsu.edu