title: A 3-dimensional digital atlas of the ascending sensory and the descending motor systems in the pigeon brain.
abstract: Pigeons are classic animal models for learning, memory, and cognition. The majority of the current understanding about avian neurobiology outside of the domain of the song system has been established using pigeons. Since MRI represents an increasingly relevant tool for comparative neuroscience, a 3-dimensional MRI-based atlas of the pigeon brain becomes essential. Using multiple imaging protocols, we delineated diverse ascending sensory and descending motor systems as well as the hippocampal formation. This pigeon brain atlas can easily be used to determine the stereotactic location of identified neural structures at any angle of the head. In addition, the atlas is useful to find the optimal angle of sectioning for slice experiments, stereotactic injections and electrophysiological recordings. This pigeon brain atlas is freely available for the scientific community.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biopsychology, Faculty of Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany. onur.guentuerkuen@rub.de
authors.forename: Onur
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Güntürkün
authors.forename: Marleen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Verhoye
authors.forename: Geert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: De Groof
authors.forename: Annemie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Van der Linden
mesh_terms: D000344:Afferent Pathways / Q000166:cytology; D000716:Anatomy, Artistic; D000818:Animals; D001271:Atlases as Topic; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D010856:Columbidae / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D003196:Computer Graphics; D004525:Efferent Pathways / Q000166:cytology; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009046:Motor Neurons / Q000166:cytology* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D064847:Multimodal Imaging; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed