Abstract
Vocal learning in songbirds and humans occurs by imitation of adult vocalizations. In both groups, vocal learning includes a perceptual phase during which juveniles birds and infants memorize adult vocalizations. Despite intensive research, the neural mechanisms supporting this auditory memory are still poorly understood. The present functional MRI study demonstrates that in adult zebra finches, the right auditory midbrain nucleus responds selectively to the copied vocalizations. The selective signal is distinct from selectivity for the bird's own song and does not simply reflect acoustic differences between the stimuli. Furthermore, the amplitude of the selective signal is positively correlated with the strength of vocal learning, measured by the amount of song that experimental birds copied from the adult model. These results indicate that early sensory experience can generate a long-lasting memory trace in the auditory midbrain of songbirds that may support song learning.
Highlights
Songbirds share with humans the ability to learn their vocalizations [1,2,3]
The goal of this study was to look for tutor song selectivity in the auditory system, using blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional MRI, a technique commonly used on humans and recently adapted to songbirds [20]
Behavioral results of song tutoring On average, the one-to-one tutoring protocol induced significant learning of the tutor song from the tutees: the mean learning strength, measured by the Sound Analysis Pro (SAP) similarity score including large-scale and fine-grained similarity, was of 48% (SE = 3.2), whereas the similarity of the tutee song with songs of other experimental birds heard only after what is supposed to be the end of the learning period (100 days post hatching (DPH)) was of 28% (SE = 1.5)
Summary
Songbirds share with humans the ability to learn their vocalizations [1,2,3]. Like human babies need to be exposed to adult speech to develop a normal vocal repertoire, juvenile songbirds need to be exposed to adult conspecific vocalizations to develop a normal song (sensory phase). While the role of the anterior forebrain pathway in generating a corrective premotor bias has been recently confirmed [9], a growing number of studies point to the ascending auditory pathway as the main neural substrate of tutor song memory [10,11,12,13,14,15] and feedback-dependent error detection [16,17]. The goal of this study was to look for tutor song selectivity in the auditory system, using blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional MRI (fMRI), a technique commonly used on humans and recently adapted to songbirds [20]. Such selectivity was found in the right auditory midbrain
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