Brain mechanisms, cognition and behaviour in birds (editorial)

The papers presented in this special issue overlap in themed content to some degree but can be broadly grouped into those dissecting out brain mechanisms and neural circuits involved in learning and motivation and those looking at decision making and cues used in complex learning. The chick has been used widely as an animal model to examine the underlying mechanisms of learning and memory both at the anatomical and biochemical levels (neurochemistry and gene expression). It is clear that most of the systems involved in learning and memory in the chick are very similar, if not identical to, those found in mammal