Abstract
As in human speech acquisition, songbird vocal learning depends on early auditory experience. During development, juvenile songbirds listen to and form auditory memories of adult tutor songs, which they use to shape their own vocalizations in later sensorimotor learning. The higher-level auditory cortex, called the caudomedial nidopallium (NCM), is a potential storage site for tutor song memory, but no direct electrophysiological evidence of tutor song memory has been found. Here, we identify the neuronal substrate for tutor song memory by recording single-neuron activity in the NCM of behaving juvenile zebra finches. After tutor song experience, a small subset of NCM neurons exhibit highly selective auditory responses to the tutor song. Moreover, blockade of GABAergic inhibition, and sleep decrease their selectivity. Taken together, these results suggest that experience-dependent recruitment of GABA-mediated inhibition shapes auditory cortical circuits, leading to sparse representation of tutor song memory in auditory cortical neurons.
Highlights
As in human speech acquisition, songbird vocal learning depends on early auditory experience
These results suggest that auditory experience with the tutor song shapes neuronal circuits in the NCM, presumably through recruitment of GABAergic inhibitory circuits and that the tutor song memory may be represented in a subset of NCM neurons
Here, we provide electrophysiological evidence that a memory of an experienced tutor song is represented in a subset of auditory cortical neurons in zebra finch brain
Summary
As in human speech acquisition, songbird vocal learning depends on early auditory experience. Juvenile songbirds listen to and form auditory memories of adult tutor songs, which they use to shape their own vocalizations in later sensorimotor learning. Blockade of GABAergic inhibition, and sleep decrease their selectivity Taken together, these results suggest that experience-dependent recruitment of GABA-mediated inhibition shapes auditory cortical circuits, leading to sparse representation of tutor song memory in auditory cortical neurons. The selectivity of auditory responses was decreased by blocking GABAA receptormediated inhibition These results suggest that auditory experience with the tutor song shapes neuronal circuits in the NCM, presumably through recruitment of GABAergic inhibitory circuits and that the tutor song memory may be represented in a subset of NCM neurons
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