The power of innate: Behavioural attachment and neural activity in responses to natural and artificial objects in filial imprinting in chicks.

ABSTRACT: Newly hatched domestic chicks are known to orient preferentially toward naturalistic stimuli, resembling a conspecific. Here, we examined to what extent this behavioral preference can be transcended by an artificial imprinting stimulus in both short-term and long-term tests. We also compared the expression maps of the plasticity-associated c-fos gene in the brains of chicks imprinted to naturalistic (rotating stuffed jungle fowl) and artificial (rotating illuminated red box) stimuli. During training, the approach activity of chicks to a naturalistic object was always higher than that to an artificial object. However, the induction of c-fos mRNA was significantly higher in chicks imprinted to a box than to a fowl, especially in the intermediate medial mesopallium, hyperpallium

SUBMITTER: Cherepov AB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9720186 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature