Bird brains can flick switch to perceive Earth's magnetic field
Research on how animals move around the world helps determine the
influence of human activity

Date:
May 26, 2023
Source:
University of Western Ontario
Summary:
Study from researchers at Western's Advanced Facility for Avian
Research (AFAR), home to the world's first hypobaric climatic wind
tunnel for bird flight, explores a brain region called cluster N
that migratory birds use to perceive Earth's magnetic field. The
team discovered the region is activated very flexibly, meaning
these birds have an ability to process, or ignore, geomagnetic
information, just as you may attend to music when you are interested
or tune it out when you are not.


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FULL STORY ========================================================================== Earth's magnetic field, generated by the flow of molten iron in the
planet's inner core, extends out into space and protects us from cosmic radiation emitted by the Sun. It is also, remarkably, used by animals
like salmon, sea turtles and migratory birds for navigation.

But how? And why? A new study from researchers at Western's Advanced
Facility for Avian Research (AFAR), home to the world's first hypobaric climatic wind tunnel for bird flight, explores a brain region called
cluster N that migratory birds use to perceive Earth's magnetic field. The
team discovered the region is activated very flexibly, meaning these
birds have an ability to process, or ignore, geomagnetic information,
just as you may attend to music when you are interested or tune it out
when you are not.

More specifically, the research team led by psychology PhD candidate
Madeleine Brodbeck and AFAR co-director Scott MacDougall-Shackleton
studied white- throated sparrows and found they were able to activate
cluster N at night when they were motivated to migrate (to avoid prey and
fly during cooler periods) and make it go dormant when they were resting
at a stopover site This is the first demonstration of this brain region functioning in a North American bird species, as all prior research in
this area was completed in Europe.

"This brain region is super important for activating the geomagnetic
compass, especially for songbirds when they migrate at night," said
Brodbeck. "Almost all previous work on this specific brain function was
done at one lab in Europe, so it was great to replicate it in a North
American bird like the white-throated sparrow." Earth's magnetic field,
likely first investigated and identified by German mathematician Carl
Friedrich Gauss in the 1830s, has long fascinated physicists, aerospace engineers and even science fiction writers like Frank Herbert and Stephen
King. Brodbeck, a bird psychologist, is equally intrigued.

"Magnetic fields are really fun to think about because they're invisible
to humans. We can't see them or sense them, but most animals perceive
them in some way," said Brodbeck. "For birds, using Earth's magnetic
field to know if they're going towards a pole or towards the equator
is obviously really helpful for orientation and migration. It's
incredible that they can activate their brain in this way, and we
can't." Understanding the physical mechanisms of how animals make
their way around in the world is a fundamentally important question
for researchers, says MacDougall-Shackleton, a psychology professor and cognitive neuroscientist.

"If we want to understand bird migration or how other animals move
from one place to another, we need to know how they do it. And more importantly, we need to know what we're doing, as humans, that might
influence them," said MacDougall-Shackleton.

The findings were published in the journal, European Journal of
Neuroscience.

"Birds don't just use their magnetic compass. We know they pay attention
to the Sun and the stars as cues too. And we also know that things like
lights at night, or windows in buildings, and all these things that we put
in the world disrupt their migrations," said MacDougall-Shackleton. "This
type of basic research informs us and lets us know the full suite of
ways that animals perceive the world when they're migrating and what we
as humans need to do to minimize our impact."
* RELATED_TOPICS
o Health_&_Medicine
# Bird_Flu # Influenza # Nervous_System #
Medical_Devices # Psychology_Research # Medical_Imaging #
Diseases_and_Conditions # Cold_and_Flu
* RELATED_TERMS
o Avian_flu o Pandemic o Global_spread_of_H5N1 o Carpal_tunnel o
Global_spread_of_H5N1_in_2006 o Hypothalamus o Cluster_headache
o Psychopathology

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_Western_Ontario. Original written by Jeff Renaud. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Madeleine I. R. Brodbeck, Verner P. Bingman, Lauren J. Cole,
David F.

Sherry, Scott A. MacDougall‐Shackleton. Neuronal activation
in the geomagnetic responsive region Cluster N covaries with
nocturnal migratory restlessness in white‐throated sparrows
( Zonotrichia albicollis ).

European Journal of Neuroscience, 2023; DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15995 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230526183214.htm

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