Smulders T V, DeVoogd T J
Department of Psychology, Uris Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Behav Brain Res. 2000 Sep;114(1-2):39-49. doi: 10.1016/s0166-4328(00)00189-3.
Black-capped chickadees store food in many different locations in their home range and are able to accurately remember these locations. We measured the number of cells immunopositive for three different Immediate Early Gene products (Fra-1, c-Fos and ZENK) to map neuronal activity in the chickadee Hippocampal Formation (HF) during food storing and retrieval. Fra-1-like immunoreactivity is downregulated in the dorsal HF of both storing and retrieving chickadees compared to controls. In retrieving birds, the number of Fos-like immunoreactive neurons relates to the number of items remembered, while the number of ZENK-like immunoreactive neurons in the HF may be related to the accuracy of cache retrieval. These results imply that the brain might process complex information by recruiting more neurons into the network of active neurons. Thus, our results could help explain why food-hoarding birds have more HF neurons than non-hoarders, and why this number increases in autumn when large numbers of food items are cached.
黑头山雀会将食物储存在其活动范围内的许多不同地点，并且能够准确记住这些地点。我们测量了三种不同即早基因产物（Fra-1、c-Fos和ZENK）免疫阳性的细胞数量，以绘制山雀在储存和取回食物期间海马结构（HF）中的神经元活动图。与对照组相比，在储存和取回食物的山雀的背侧HF中，Fra-1样免疫反应性下调。在取回食物的鸟类中，Fos样免疫反应性神经元的数量与记住的物品数量有关，而HF中ZENK样免疫反应性神经元的数量可能与取回储存食物的准确性有关。这些结果表明，大脑可能通过将更多神经元招募到活跃神经元网络中来处理复杂信息。因此，我们的结果有助于解释为什么储食鸟类比非储食鸟类有更多的HF神经元，以及为什么在秋季大量食物被储存时这个数量会增加。
