Dataset Information

Intermittence and connectivity of interactions in pigeon flock flights.

ABSTRACT: Collective circular motion is a common yet spectacular behavior of pigeon flocks. Efficient and robust inter-individual communication is required for flock coordination during this widely-spreaded movement pattern. When a flock hovers near the home loft, the rotational direction undergoes regular spontaneous variations. Based on intensive analyses of high spatial-temporal resolution GPS data, we quantified the intensity of velocity alignment among different individuals in terms of their velocity fluctuations. It is found that pigeon flocks employ an intermittent interaction (alignment) mechanism, where intra-group information transmission is not required at every instant. However, the union of the topologies of several consecutive interaction networks always keeps connected. This biological observation strongly suggests the presence of a jointly connected topology in pigeon flocks, which helps substantially reduce the communication and/or information processing requirements while retaining the agility and stability of the group. Finally, we conducted extensive investigation on the interaction mechanism as well as the spontaneous changes in rotational direction of pigeon flocks. These results shed some light onto the coordination mechanism exploration of bird flocks' collective motions.

SUBMITTER: Chen D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5585366 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Intermittence and connectivity of interactions in pigeon flock flights.

Chen Duxin D Liu Xiaolu X Xu Bowen B Zhang Hai-Tao HT

Scientific reports 20170905 1

Collective circular motion is a common yet spectacular behavior of pigeon flocks. Efficient and robust inter-individual communication is required for flock coordination during this widely-spreaded movement pattern. When a flock hovers near the home loft, the rotational direction undergoes regular spontaneous variations. Based on intensive analyses of high spatial-temporal resolution GPS data, we quantified the intensity of velocity alignment among different individuals in terms of their velocity ...[more]

PMID: 28874738

Similar Datasets

Project description:Spreading depression (SD) is thought to cause migraine aura, and perhaps migraine, and includes a transient loss of synaptic activity preceded and followed by increased neuronal excitability. Activated microglia influence neuronal activity and play an important role in homeostatic synaptic scaling via release of cytokines. Furthermore, enhanced neuronal function activates microglia to not only secrete cytokines but also to increase the motility of their branches, with somata remaining stationary. While SD also increases the release of cytokines from microglia, the effects on microglial movement from its synaptic activity fluctuations are unknown. Accordingly, we used time-lapse imaging of rat hippocampal slice cultures to probe for microglial movement associated with SD. We observed that in uninjured brain whole microglial cells moved. The movements were well described by the type of Lévy flight known to be associated with an optimal search pattern. Hours after SD, when synaptic activity rose, microglial cell movement was significantly increased. To test how synaptic activity influenced microglial movement, we enhanced neuronal activity with chemical long-term potentiation or LPS and abolished it with TTX. We found that microglial movement was significantly decreased by enhanced neuronal activity and significantly increased by activity blockade. Finally, application of glutamate and ATP to mimic restoration of synaptic activity in the presence of TTX stopped microglial movement that was otherwise seen with TTX. Thus, synaptic activity retains microglial cells in place and an absence of synaptic activity sends them off to influence wider expanses of brain. Perhaps increased microglial movements after SD are a long-lasting, and thus maladaptive, response in which these cells increase neuronal activity via contact or paracrine signaling, which results in increased susceptibility of larger brain areas to SD. If true, then targeting mechanisms that retard activity-dependent microglial Lévy flights may be a novel means to reduce susceptibility to migraine.

Dataset Information

Intermittence and connectivity of interactions in pigeon flock flights.

Publications

Intermittence and connectivity of interactions in pigeon flock flights.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets