Vocal Exploration Is Locally Regulated during Song Learning

Vocal exploration is locally regulated during song learning.

Exploratory variability is essential for sensorimotor learning, but it is not known how and at what timescales it is regulated. We manipulated song learning in zebra finches to experimentally control the requirements for vocal exploration in different parts of their song. We first trained birds to perform a one-syllable song, and once they mastered it, we added a new syllable to the song model....

FoxP2 in song-learning birds and vocal-learning mammals.

FoxP2 is the first identified gene that is specifically involved in speech and language development in humans. Population genetic studies of FoxP2 revealed a selective sweep in recent human history associated with two amino acid substitutions in exon 7. Avian song learning and human language acquisition share many behavioral and neurological similarities. To determine whether FoxP2 plays a simi...

Neural circuits. Inhibition protects acquired song segments during vocal learning in zebra finches.

Vocal imitation involves incorporating instructive auditory information into relevant motor circuits through processes that are poorly understood. In zebra finches, we found that exposure to a tutor's song drives spiking activity within premotor neurons in the juvenile, whereas inhibition suppresses such responses upon learning in adulthood. We measured inhibitory currents evoked by the tutor s...

Song selectivity and sensorimotor signals in vocal learning and production.

Bird song, like human speech, is a learned vocal behavior that requires auditory feedback. Both as juveniles, while they learn to sing, and as adults, songbirds use auditory feedback to compare their own vocalizations with an internal model of a target song. Here we describe experiments that explore a role for the songbird anterior forebrain pathway (AFP), a basal ganglia-forebrain circuit, in ...

Inhibition protects acquired song segments during vocal learning in zebra finches