Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Spatial coding in the hippocampus of flying owls

Arpit Agarwal, Ayelet Sarel, Dori Derdikman, Nachum Ulanovsky, Yoram Gutfreund
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.24.465553
Arpit Agarwal
Department of Neurobiology, Rappaport Research Institute and Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Ayelet Sarel
Department of Neurobiology, Rappaport Research Institute and Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Dori Derdikman
Department of Neurobiology, Rappaport Research Institute and Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Nachum Ulanovsky
Department of Neurobiology, Rappaport Research Institute and Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Yoram Gutfreund
Department of Neurobiology, Rappaport Research Institute and Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: yoramg@technion.ac.il
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Summary

The elucidation of spatial coding in the hippocampus requires exploring diverse animal species. While robust place-cells are found in the mammalian hippocampus, much less is known about spatial coding in the hippocampus of birds – and nothing is known about avian spatial representation during flight. Here we used a wireless-electrophysiology system to record single neurons in the hippocampus and related pallial structures from freely flying barn owls (Tyto alba) – a central-place nocturnal predator species with excellent navigational abilities. The owl’s 3D position was monitored while it flew back and forth between two perches. We found place cells – neurons that robustly represented the owl’s location during flight, and its flight-direction – as well as neurons that coded the owl’s perching position between flights. Spatial coding was invariant to changes in lighting conditions and to the position of a salient object in the room. Place cells were found in the anterior hippocampus and in the adjacent posterior hyperpallium apicale, and to a much lesser extent in the visual Wulst (visual-cortex homologue). The finding of place-cells in flying owls suggests commonalities in spatial coding across a variety of species – including rodents, bats and owls.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted October 24, 2021.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Spatial coding in the hippocampus of flying owls
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Spatial coding in the hippocampus of flying owls
Arpit Agarwal, Ayelet Sarel, Dori Derdikman, Nachum Ulanovsky, Yoram Gutfreund
bioRxiv 2021.10.24.465553; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.24.465553
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Spatial coding in the hippocampus of flying owls
Arpit Agarwal, Ayelet Sarel, Dori Derdikman, Nachum Ulanovsky, Yoram Gutfreund
bioRxiv 2021.10.24.465553; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.24.465553

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Neuroscience
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4369)
  • Biochemistry (9546)
  • Bioengineering (7068)
  • Bioinformatics (24768)
  • Biophysics (12560)
  • Cancer Biology (9924)
  • Cell Biology (14297)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7930)
  • Ecology (12074)
  • Epidemiology (2067)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15954)
  • Genetics (10904)
  • Genomics (14706)
  • Immunology (9844)
  • Microbiology (23582)
  • Molecular Biology (9454)
  • Neuroscience (50691)
  • Paleontology (369)
  • Pathology (1535)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2674)
  • Physiology (3997)
  • Plant Biology (8639)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1505)
  • Synthetic Biology (2388)
  • Systems Biology (6415)
  • Zoology (1344)