Bingman V P, Bagnoli P, Ioalè P, Casini G
Brain Behav Evol. 1984;24(2-3):94-108. doi: 10.1159/000121308.
In a first experiment, dorsomedial forebrain ablated birds showed similar homeward orientation when compared to untreated controls independent of whether the birds were released from a previous training site or a site they had never been before. However, although all control birds returned to the home loft, only 2 of 28 birds with lesions homed successfully. In a subsequent experiment, both sham operated control birds and birds with lesions of the visual Wulst homed successfully when released only 800 m from and in full view of their respective home lofts. Pigeons with dorsomedial forebrain lesions, however, failed to return to their respective home lofts. The results show that the avian dorsomedial forebrain plays a critical role in that step of the homing process by which a pigeon returns to its home loft once in its vicinity, and that the failure to reassociate with the home loft is a likely result of deficient recognition of the home loft and/or its surrounding area. In an additional experiment, pigeons with Wulst lesions were shown to orient as controls and to successfully return to the home loft when released from two distant sites. This experiment demonstrated that the avian Wulst plays no necessary role in the homing behavior of pigeons.
在第一个实验中，与未处理的对照组相比，背内侧前脑被切除的鸟类表现出相似的归巢方向，无论这些鸟是从之前的训练地点还是从未去过的地点放飞。然而，尽管所有对照鸟都回到了鸽舍，但28只脑部有损伤的鸟中只有2只成功归巢。在随后的实验中，当仅从距离各自鸽舍800米且能完全看到鸽舍的地方放飞时，接受假手术的对照鸟和视觉中脑损伤的鸟都成功归巢。然而，背内侧前脑损伤的鸽子未能回到各自的鸽舍。结果表明，鸟类背内侧前脑在归巢过程的这一步骤中起着关键作用，即鸽子一旦接近其鸽舍就能回到鸽舍，而未能与鸽舍重新建立联系很可能是对鸽舍和/或其周边区域识别不足的结果。在另一个实验中，当中脑损伤的鸽子从两个较远的地点放飞时，它们表现出与对照鸟相同的定向能力，并成功回到鸽舍。该实验表明，鸟类中脑在鸽子的归巢行为中没有必要作用。
