Abstract
OF THE THESIS Estrogenic Modulation of Auditory Processing in Female Songbirds By KATHLEEN MARIE YODER Thesis Director: David S. Vicario In songbirds, male song is learned and is thought to be sexually selected for as a function of female mate choice. In this view, females must choose a conspecific mate whose song provides an honest signal of his quality. Male zebra finches copy an adult tutor’s song during development, and a memory for this tutor song is stored in the brain auditory processing area NCM. Female zebra finches do not copy, but they do show a behavioral preference in adulthood for the tutor song that they heard during development. Surprisingly, female NCM does not appear to have a memory for the tutor-song like that in males. We hypothesized that the expression of this memory in female NCM can be modulated by gonadal hormones, specifically that physiological estrogen levels in breeding females may influence sexual behavior by inducing changes in NCM that allow the previously formed tutor-song memory to be expressed, enable conspecific sounds to be discriminated from less relevant sounds, and facilitate acquisition of new auditory memories all processes which may contribute to successful mate choice and
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