"Chickadees' Barcode Memories: A Masterful Food Stashing Technique"
Originally Published 1 year ago — by The Guardian
Researchers have discovered that black-capped chickadees create a barcode-like memory each time they stash food, allowing them to reliably locate their hidden treats. By recording the birds' behavior and brain activity, scientists found that a different combination of neurons fired in the birds' hippocampus each time they stashed seeds, resulting in a unique barcode pattern. This mechanism is distinct from the formation of memories involving specific locations and suggests that the birds create specific episodic experiences when storing and retrieving food. The findings may have implications for understanding memory formation in humans and other mammals.