Hippocampal-dependent familiar area map supports corrective re-orientation following navigational error during pigeon homing: a GPS-tracking study

It is hypothesized that a central role of the vertebrate hippocampal formation (HF) in behavior is the learning and operation of a map-like representation of familiar landmarks and landscape features. One critical property of a map is that it should enable an individual to re-orient towards a goal location following a navigational error. To test this prediction on a spatial scale consistent with their naturally occurring behavior, control and HF-lesioned homing pigeons were trained from two locations and then subsequently released, while carrying portable GPS-tracking devices, following a phase-shift treatment. Analyses revealed that the HF-lesioned pigeons were less successful than control pigeons in re-orienting homewards following the phase-shift-induced error in their initial orientation. Furthermore, the observation that HF-lesioned pigeons were found to routinely ignore a land–sea landscape boundary when returning home from one of the release sites suggests that coarse landscape features may be an underappreciated source of navigational information for homing pigeons. The data demonstrate that, on a scale of tens of kilometers, homing pigeons are able to learn a hippocampal-dependent, map-like representation of familiar landmarks/landscape features that can support corrective re-orientation following a navigational error.