Immediate early gene fingerprints of multi-component behaviour

The ability to execute different responses in an expedient temporal order is central for efficient goal-directed actions and often referred to as multi-component behaviour. However, the underlying neural mechanisms on a cellular level remain unclear. Here we establish a link between neural activity at the cellular level within functional neuroanatomical structures to this form of goal-directed behaviour by analyzing immediate early gene (IEG) expression in an animal model, the pigeon (Columba livia). We focus on the group of zif268 IEGs and ZENK in particular. We show that when birds have to cascade separate task goals, ZENK expression is increased in the avian equivalent of the mammalian prefrontal cortex, i.e. the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) as well as in the homologous striatum. Moreover, in the NCL as well as in the medial striatum (MSt), the degree of ZENK expression was highly correlated with the efficiency of multi-component behaviour. The results provide the first link between cellular IEG expression and behavioural outcome in multitasking situations. Moreover, the data suggest that the function of the fronto-striatal circuitry is comparable across species indicating that there is limited flexibility in the implementation of complex cognition such as multi-component behaviour within functional neuroanatomical structures.