Hippocampal Astrocytes in Migrating and Wintering Semipalmated Sandpiper Calidris pusilla.

ABSTRACT: Seasonal migratory birds return to the same breeding and wintering grounds year after year, and migratory long-distance shorebirds are good examples of this. These tasks require learning and long-term spatial memory abilities that are integrated into a navigational system for repeatedly locating breeding, wintering, and stopover sites. Previous investigations focused on the neurobiological basis of hippocampal plasticity and numerical estimates of hippocampal neurogenesis in birds but only a few studies investigated potential contributions of glial cells to hippocampal-dependent tasks related to migration. Here we hypothesized that the astrocytes of migrating and wintering birds may exhibit significant morphological and numerical differences connected to the long-distance flight. We used a

SUBMITTER: Carvalho-Paulo D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5758497 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature