Michael Brecht (BCCN Berlin) and Yasemin Vardar (Delft University of Technology), “Active touch and Large-Brain Neuroscience in Elephants”

I will present data on a systemic investigation of brains and of grasping behavior in elephants. The analysis of sensory nerves suggests that elephants are extremely tactile animals. In elephants, trunk whisker length is lateralized as a result of heavily lateralized trunk behaviors. The elephant trunk tip appears to be represented by a large cortical three-dimensional trunk-tip model; this observation is reminiscent of the somatosensory cortical snout representation in pigs. The trunk musculature of elephants is breath-takingly complex and filigree. Trunk morphology, motor neuron organization and grasping differs between African elephants (which pinch objects with their two trunk fingers) and Asian elephants (which have only one finger and wrap objects with their trunk).
I will discuss the potential of novel X-ray technologies for large brain analysis. Both behavioral analysis and elephant neuroanatomy reveal striking individual differences between individual elephants. Thus, it appears that elephants are less equal than other animals.

This talk is part of course Olga Shurygina‘s course “Active Sensing,” a seminar on cutting-edge research on active sensory perception in humans and other mammals and realted advances in artificial agents’ abilities such as seeing, grasping, and navigating in space.

Photo created with DALL-E by Maria Ott.