Department of Zoology

Emeritus Professor

Research area - Behaviour and Behavioural Neuroscience

Neural mechanisms of attention, learning and memory. The current, major focus of research is to analyze neural mechanisms of memory through a study of imprinting in the domestic chick. The young of many species, when exposed to a conspicuous object (an imprinting stimulus), rapidly learn the object's characteristics and subsequently narrow their social preferences to it. This learning process is called imprinting, the study of which has yielded important insights into the nature of learning and memory. A part of the chick forebrain (the IMM formerly known as IMHV) has been identified that is critical for imprinting. The available evidence indicates that the IMM is a site of memory for features of the imprinting stimulus. Currently, learning-specific changes in the IMM are being studied using behavioural, biochemical, electrophysiological and immunocytochemical techniques.

Research group - Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour

Selected publications

• Solomonia R., Kotorashvili A., Kiguradze T.and McCabe B.J. and Horn, G. (2005) Ca2+/calmodulin protein kinase II and memory: learning-related changes in a localized region of the domestic chick brain.  J. Physiology (2005) 569: 643-653.

• Horn, G. (2004).Pathways of the past; the imprint of memory. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 5, 108-120.
• Solomonia, R.O., Morgan, K., Kotorashvili, A., McCabe, B.J., Jackson, A.P. and Horn, G. (2003). Analysis of differential gene expression supports a role for amyloid precursor protein and a protein kinase C substrate (MARCKS) in long-term memory. Eur. J. Neurosci. 17, 1073-1081.
• McCabe, B.J., Horn, G. & Kendrick, K.M. 2001. γ-aminobutyric acid, taurine and learning: release of amino acids from slices of chick brain following filial imprinting. Neuroscience. 105(2): 317-324.
• Horn, G., Bobrow, M., Bruce,M., Goerdert, M., McLean, A. and Webster, J. Review of the origin of BSE. Report for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Health, July 2001 pp 1-66.
• Horn, G., Nicol, A.U. and Brown, M. W. (2001).Tracking memory's trace. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98 5282-5287.
• Bolhuis, J.J., Cook, S. and Horn, G. (2000). Getting better all the time: improving preference scores reflect increases in the strength of filial imprinting. Anim. Behav. 59, 1153-1159.
• Horn, G. (2000). In memory. In: Brain, Perception, Memory. Advances in Cognitive Neuroscience. ed. J.J.Bolhuis. Oxford University Press, Oxford pp. 329-363.
• Nicol, A., U., Brown, M. W. and Horn, G. (1999) Is neuronal encoding of subject-object distance dependent on learning?  NeuroReport 10  1671-1675.