Courtesy of Anton Reiner
Schematic line drawings of transverse sections of the cerebrum in pigeon (first and last) and rat (middle), showing the outdated interpretation of cerebral organization and the outdated nomenclature for birds, the established interpretation of mammalian cerebral organization and nomenclature, and the current interpretation of the organization of avian cerebrum and new nomenclature. In each schematic, the yellow region represents pallium, the turquoise region represents striatum, and the orange region represents globus pallidus.
Everybody in avian neuroscience endures jokes about "bird brains." But the business of bird brains is quite serious. A profound understanding of learning and memory development has emerged from studies showing how male songbirds learn the mating songs of their species. Unfortunately, the birds may be communicating better with their peers than are the neuroscientists who study them.
The problem is nomenclature. Ill-conceived terms create false analogies with mammalian brains that bedevil avian researchers. ...
