The cerebellar anatomy of red junglefowl and white leghorn chickens: insights into the effects of domestication on the cerebellum.

ABSTRACT: Domestication is the process by which wild organisms become adapted for human use. Many phenotypic changes are associated with animal domestication, including decreases in brain and brain region sizes. In contrast with this general pattern, the chicken has a larger cerebellum compared with the wild red junglefowl, but what neuroanatomical changes are responsible for this difference have yet to be investigated. Here, we quantified cell layer volumes, neuron numbers and neuron sizes in the cerebella of chickens and junglefowl. Chickens have larger, more folded cerebella with more and larger granule cells than junglefowl, but neuron numbers and cerebellar folding were proportional to cerebellum size. However, chickens do have relatively larger granule cell layer volumes and relatively larger

SUBMITTER: Racicot KJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8511745 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature