Memory-specific correlated neuronal activity in higher-order auditory regions of a parrot

Ryohei Satoh,Takenori Miyamoto,Johan J Bolhuis,Aiko Watanabe,Yasuharu Okamoto,Matthijs A Zandbergen,Hiroko Eda-Fujiwara

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-80726-y

Abstract

Male budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) are open-ended learners that can learn to produce new vocalisations as adults. We investigated neuronal activation in male budgerigars using the expression of the protein products of the immediate early genes zenk and c-fos in response to exposure to conspecific contact calls (CCs: that of the mate or an unfamiliar female) in three subregions (CMM, dNCM and vNCM) of the caudomedial pallium, a higher order auditory region. Significant positive correlations of Zenk expression were found between these subregions after exposure to mate CCs. In contrast, exposure to CCs of unfamiliar females produced no such correlations. These results suggest the presence of a CC-specific association among the subregions involved in auditory memory. The caudomedial pallium of the male budgerigar may have functional subdivisions that cooperate in the neuronal representation of auditory memory.

Highlights

Male budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) are open-ended learners that can learn to produce new vocalisations as adults
These behavioural results are consistent with previous findings by Hile et al.[38,40] and confirm that male budgerigars learn the contact calls (CCs) of their mates
We investigated neuronal activation based on Zenk and Fos expression in response to female CCs in the caudomedial pallium of male budgerigars

Summary

Introduction

Male budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) are open-ended learners that can learn to produce new vocalisations as adults. We investigated neuronal activation in male budgerigars using the expression of the protein products of the immediate early genes zenk and c-fos in response to exposure to conspecific contact calls (CCs: that of the mate or an unfamiliar female) in three subregions (CMM, dNCM and vNCM) of the caudomedial pallium, a higher order auditory region. The induction of Zenk is regulated by the ERK in the zebra finch auditory forebrain[33] Parrots learning their contact calls (CCs) may be a good animal model for human speech acquisition[34, 35]. Since the functional network organisation of the brains of vertebrates is thought to be closely

Methods

Results

Conclusion