How chickadees recall hidden snacks.

A recent study has found that black-capped chickadees use specific combinations of neurons in their brains to encode and recall memories of where they have hidden food. These neural combinations act like bar codes, with each food cache having its own unique combination of active neurons. The researchers believe that these bar codes may be a type of engram, or physical manifestation of memory. The study also found that the chickadees' bar codes work in parallel with another group of neurons called place cells, which encode information about the animal's location. This research provides valuable insights into how episodic memory operates in nonhuman animals. [Extracted from the article]