Bird brains get high-tech treatment
Scientists are using the latest scanning technology to track the evolution of flight by looking at the size and shape of bird brains in species - both ancient and modern. The project brings together researchers from National Museums Scotland and the University of Abertay Dundee in the UK plus the University of Lethbridge in Canada. Birds' brains grow to almost completely fill the skull, meaning that the skull can be used to analyse the size and shape of the brain. Scientists are particularly interested in a structure called the flocculus. Part of the cerebellum, the flocculus integrates visual and balance signals during flight, allowing the bird to focus on objects moving in three dimensions while they are in flight. A key question for researchers is whether species with a larger flocculus are better at processing visual and balance signals during flight. Similarly, scientists are also keen to find out whether birds that have lost the ability to fly, as was the case with the dodo, have a smaller flocculus. As well as shedding new light on the evolution of flight, the researchers hope their findings will reveal whether some bird-like dinosaurs are truly dinosaurs or birds that have become flightless. The team is using a highly sensitive computerised tomography (CT) scanner at the University of Abertay Dundee to analyse the skulls of around 100 modern species of bird as well as fragments and whole skulls from fossilised birds. The sample includes two of the rarest bird fossils in the world. These belonged to a flightless seabird that lived around 100 million years ago. What makes these fossils so special is the fact that they were preserved in three dimensions (3D); most fossils are largely two dimensional as they become squashed by the weight of the earth above them. 'By charting the relative size of parts of the avian brain we believe we can discover how the flocculus has evolved to deal with different flying abilities, giving us new information about when birds first evolved the power of flight,' explained project leader Dr Stig Walsh, Senior Curator of Vertebrate Palaeobiology at National Museums Scotland. 'This research has only been recently made possible through advances in X-ray micro-CT scanning,' he continued. 'Unlike medical scanners, which take a series of slice images through an object that may be up to 1.5 millimetres apart, the 3D scanner at Abertay University can be accurate up to 6 microns.' Dr Wilfred Otten, leader of the X-ray CT scanning facility at the University of Abertay Dundee, said: 'Building from our expertise in environmental and soil science, we're able to offer unrivalled expertise in capturing and quantifying interior structures of a wide range of materials.' 'We hope that this joint project can produce not only incredible images but also help answer some of these important unresolved questions about the evolution of flight,' added Abertay researcher Patsy Dello Sterpaio. The project will run until early 2012.For more information, please visit: University of Abertay Dundee:http://www.abertay.ac.uk/
Countries
Canada, United Kingdom