Neuronal foundations of spatial attention in the crow brain

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Nieder
• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 440914696

Spatial attention is characterized by enhanced processing of relevant information at a specific location at the expense of processing irrelevant information at another location. The behavioral signatures of spatial attention processes have been explored intensively in humans and nonhuman primates, and evidence suggests that the neuronal correlates of attention reside in the cerebral cortex. Despite a radically different and convergently-evolved endbrain layout lacking a cerebral cortex, birds also show excellent spatial cognition. However, it is unknown whether birds possess sophisticated spatial attention, and how it might be processed in the brain. Corvid songbirds (jays, crows, and ravens) with their expanded telencephalic circuitries exhibit excellent behavioral flexibility and cognitive abilities. To address spatial attention processes in birds, we therefore study carrion crows (Corvus corone). Crows are trained on visual detection tasks in which visual cues direct the crows’ attention towards or away from the location of subsequent target stimuli. By comparing performance and reaction times with and without attention, the behavioral signatures of spatial attention are explored. During behavioral performance, we record the activity of populations of neurons in the crows’ endbrain region ‘nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL)’, an area known to be important for cognitive control functions in birds. This will allow us to clarify the neuronal correlates of spatial attentional processing in birds. This research will help to decipher the general mechanisms of selective attention in vertebrates, irrespective of the precise anatomical structuring and evolution of their endbrains.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants