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Specialized spatial cognition is associated with reduced cognitive senescence in a food-caching bird.

ABSTRACT: Senescence, the gradual reduction and loss of function as organisms age, is a widespread process that is especially pronounced in cognitive abilities. Senescence appears to have a genetic basis and can be affected by evolutionary processes. If cognitive senescence is shaped by natural selection, it may be linked with selection on cognitive abilities needed for survival and reproduction, such that species where fitness is directly related to cognitive abilities should evolve delayed cognitive senescence likely resulting in higher lifetime fitness. We used wild food-caching mountain chickadees, which rely on specialized spatial cognition to recover thousands of food caches annually, to test for cognitive senescence in spatial learning and memory and reversal spatial learning and memory abilities. We detected no signs of age-related senescence in spatial cognitive performance on either task in birds ranging from 1 to 6 years old; older birds actually performed better on spatial learning and memory tasks. Our results therefore suggest that cognitive senescence may be either delayed (potentially appearing after 6 years) or negligible in species with strong selection on cognitive abilities and that food-caching species may present a useful model to investigate mechanisms associated with cognitive senescence.

SUBMITTER: Heinen VK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8059976 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Specialized spatial cognition is associated with reduced cognitive senescence in a food-caching bird.

Heinen Virginia K VK Pitera Angela M AM Sonnenberg Benjamin R BR Benedict Lauren M LM Branch Carrie L CL Bridge Eli S ES Pravosudov Vladimir V VV

Proceedings. Biological sciences 20210331 1947

Senescence, the gradual reduction and loss of function as organisms age, is a widespread process that is especially pronounced in cognitive abilities. Senescence appears to have a genetic basis and can be affected by evolutionary processes. If cognitive senescence is shaped by natural selection, it may be linked with selection on cognitive abilities needed for survival and reproduction, such that species where fitness is directly related to cognitive abilities should evolve delayed cognitive sen ...[more]

PMID: 33784865

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Project description:BackgroundSpatial cognition deteriorates in Parkinson's disease (PD), but the neural substrates are not understood, despite the risk for future dementia. It is also unclear whether deteriorating spatial cognition relates to changes in other cognitive domains or contributes to motor dysfunction.ObjectiveThis study aimed to identify functional connectivity abnormalities in cognitively normal PD (PDCN) in regions that support spatial cognition to determine their relationship to interfacing cognitive functions and motor disability, and to determine if they predict cognitive and motor progression 2 years later in a PDCN subsample.MethodsSixty-three PDCN and 43 controls underwent functional MRI while judging whether pictures, rotated at various angles, depicted the left or right hand. The task activates systems that respond to increases in rotation angle, a proxy for visuospatial difficulty. Angle-modulated functional connectivity was analyzed for frontal cortex, posterior cortex, and basal ganglia regions.ResultsTwo aberrant connectivity patterns were found in PDCN, which were condensed into principal components that characterized the strength and topology of angle-modulated connectivity. One topology related to a marked failure to amplify frontal, posterior, and basal ganglia connectivity with other brain areas as visuospatial demands increased, unlike the control group (control features). Another topology related to functional reorganization whereby regional connectivity was strengthened with brain areas not recruited by the control group (PDCN features). Functional topologies correlated with diverse cognitive domains at baseline, underscoring their influences on spatial cognition. In PDCN, expression of topologies that were control features predicted greater cognitive progression longitudinally, suggesting inefficient communications within circuitry normally recruited to handle spatial demands. Conversely, stronger expression of topologies that were PDCN features predicted less longitudinal cognitive decline, suggesting functional reorganization was compensatory. Parieto-occipital topologies (control features) had different prognostic implications for longitudinal changes in motor disability. Expression of one topology predicted less motor decline, whereas expression of another predicted increased postural instability and gait disturbance (PIGD) feature severity. Concurrently, greater longitudinal decline in spatial cognition predicted greater motor and PIGD feature progression, suggesting deterioration in shared substrates.ConclusionThese novel discoveries elucidate functional mechanisms of visuospatial cognition in PDCN, which foreshadow future cognitive and motor disability.

Project description:BackgroundTackling behavioural questions often requires identifying points in space and time where animals make decisions and linking these to environmental variables. State-space modeling is useful for analysing movement trajectories, particularly with hidden Markov models (HMM). Yet importantly, the ontogeny of underlying (unobservable) behavioural states revealed by the HMMs has rarely been verified in the field.MethodsUsing hidden Markov models of individual movement from animal location, biotelemetry, and environmental data, we explored multistate behaviour and the effect of associated intrinsic and extrinsic drivers across life stages. We also decomposed the activity budgets of different movement states at two general and caching phases. The latter - defined as the period following a kill which likely involves the caching of uneaten prey - was subsequently confirmed by field inspections. We applied this method to GPS relocation data of a caching predator, Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor in northeastern Iran.ResultsMultistate modeling provided strong evidence for an effect of life stage on the behavioural states and their associated time budget. Although environmental covariates (ambient temperature and diel period) and ecological outcomes (predation) affected behavioural states in non-resident leopards, the response in resident leopards was not clear, except that temporal patterns were consistent with a crepuscular and nocturnal movement pattern. Resident leopards adopt an energetically more costly mobile behaviour for most of their time while non-residents shift their behavioural states from high energetic expenditure states to energetically less costly encamped behaviour for most of their time, which is likely to be a risk avoidance strategy against conspecifics or humans.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates that plasticity in predator behaviour depending on life stage may tackle a trade-off between successful predation and avoiding the risks associated with conspecifics, human presence and maintaining home range. Range residency in territorial predators is energetically demanding and can outweigh the predator's response to intrinsic and extrinsic variables such as thermoregulation or foraging needs. Our approach provides an insight into spatial behavior and decision making of leopards, and other large felids in rugged landscapes through the application of the HMMs in movement ecology.

Dataset Information

Specialized spatial cognition is associated with reduced cognitive senescence in a food-caching bird.

Publications

Specialized spatial cognition is associated with reduced cognitive senescence in a food-caching bird.

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