Neural song preference during vocal learning in the zebra finch depends on age and state.

The zebra finch acquires its song by first memorizing a model song from a tutor and then matching its own vocalizations to the memory trace of the tutor song, called a template. Neural mechanisms underlying this process require a link between the neural memory trace and the premotor song circuitry, which drives singing. We now report that a premotor song nucleus responds more to the tutor song model than to every other stimulus examined, including the bird's own song (BOS). Neural tuning to the song model occurred only during waking and peaked during the template-matching period of development, when the vocal motor output is sculpted to match the tutor song. During the same developmental phase, the BOS was the most effective excitatory stimulus during sleep. The preference for BOS compared to tutor song inverted with sleep/wake state. Thus, song preference shifts with development and state.