Multisensory integration of navigational information in the avian telencephalon (Neu04)

• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 395940726

To achieve a comprehensive understanding of magnetoreception and vertebrate navigation, it is important to identify where multisensory integration of navigation-relevant information from all senses used takes place in the brain. This project aims to reveal the anatomical foundations with which birds integrate sensory input, set navigational goals, use them to compute and control navigational directions, and finally activate the appropriate motor output. To this end, we will trace key sensory pathways from their first area of representation in the telencephalon, via a “prefrontal” area and the hippocampus down to the motor output structures. By using both long-distance night-migratory songbirds and shorter-distance diurnally migrating pigeons, we will cover the variety of anatomical blueprints of navigating birds.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1372: Magnetoreception and navigation in vertebrates: from biophysics to brain and behaviour
• Applicant Institution: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Onur Güntürkün; Dr. Dominik Heyers