Guest Lecture

Lena Kaufmann

Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Elephant neurobiology and behavior: from trunks to brains

My current research is focused on finding out how the elephant brain has adapted to the unique specialization the elephant’s trunk represents. Elephants are not only a flagship species and ecosystem engineers and as such of special importance for conservation biology and the preservation of whole ecosystems but for us neuroscientists they are also specifically interesting animals for several reasons. Their big brains with extensive gyrification and big but sparse cells are in some regards on the other extreme commonly studied species such as mice or rats represent one side of. They are highly specialized in morphology and behavior, depending on their trunks, a fusion organ of nose and upper lip, for food and water uptake, body care, communication, and manipulation of their environment. Even though elephants are of great public and scientific interest we still don’t know much about their brains and nothing about actual in vivo neuronal activity. My research aims to better understand the morphology and physiology of the trunk, the importance of the trunk for social and non-social behaviors, how the brain and peripheral nervous system of the elephant have adapted to this specialization and how the brain responds to stimuli in actual living elephants. Here, my focus lies on African (Loxodonta africana) and Asian (Elephas maximus) elephants and specifically also on how differences in their bodies and behavior go along with differences in neuroanatomy. These two elephant species diverged 5-7 million years ago and pose a great model to study different adaptations in relatively similar species.

Biosketch

I am originally from Vienna, came to Berlin for an internship 5 years ago during my master studies to tickle rats and returned for my PhD to work with elephants, both in the same group at Humboldt University, with Michael Brecht. My background is on the one hand in molecular biology and neuroscience and on the other in animal cognition and behavior. And that is also where my passion and my main interest lies, in finding out more about the interplay of natural behavior and morphological or physiological adaptations and the brain.