Birdsong is comprised of rich spectral and temporal organization, which might be used for vocal perception. To quantify how this structure could be used, we have reconstructed birdsong spectrograms by combining the spike trains of zebra finch auditory midbrain neurons with information about the correlations present in song. We calculated maximum a posteriori estimates of song spectrograms using...

This study examines the development of two neural pathways within the zebra finch forebrain that function respectively in the juvenile acquisition and the adult production of learned song. In the adult male zebra finch forebrain, the song nuclei L-MAN and HVc both innervate nucleus RA; L-MAN plays a crucial role in juvenile song acquisition but, unlike HVc and RA, is not essential for adult son...

Dopamine is a key neuromodulatory transmitter in the brain. It acts through dopamine receptors to affect changes in neural activity, gene expression, and behavior. In songbirds, dopamine is released into the striatal song nucleus Area X, and the levels depend on social contexts of undirected and directed singing. This differential release is associated with differential expression of activity-d...

Over the past 50 years, songbirds have become a valuable model organism for scientists studying vocal communication from its behavioral, hormonal, neuronal, and genetic perspectives. Many advances in our understanding of vocal learning result from research using the zebra finch, a close-ended vocal learner. We review some of the manipulations used in zebra finch research, such as isolate housin...

The offspring of brood parasitic birds benefit from hatching earlier than host young. A proposed but little-known strategy to achieve this is 'internal incubation', by retaining the egg in the oviduct for an additional 24 h. To test this, we quantified the stage of embryo development at laying in four brood parasitic birds (European cuckoo, Cuculus canorus; African cuckoo, Cuculus gularis; grea...

The song of the adult male zebra finch is strikingly stereotyped. Efforts to understand motor output, pattern generation, and learning have taken advantage of this consistency by investigating the bird's ability to modify specific parts of song under external cues, and by examining timing relationships between neural activity and vocal output. Such experiments require that precise moments durin...

Auditory neurons can be characterized by a spectro-temporal receptive field, the kernel of a linear filter model describing the neuronal response to a stimulus. With a view to better understanding the tuning properties of these cells, the receptive fields of neurons in the zebra finch auditory fore-brain are compared to a set of artificial kernels generated under the assumption of sparseness; t...

Afferent connections of the two main areas in the telencephalon, the visual wulst and the ectostriatum, were traced in the zebra finch by injection of horseradish peroxidase and staining with tetramethylbenzidine (TMB). Nuclei projecting to the hyperstriatum accessorium (HA) or the HIS region (lamina hyperstriatica intercalatus superior) were: (1) ipsilaterally the n. dorsalis anterior pars lat...

The pectoralis muscles are the main source of mechanical power for avian flight. The power output of these muscles must be modulated to meet the changing power requirements of flight across a range of speeds. This can be achieved at the muscle level by manipulation of strain trajectory and recruitment patterns, and/or by intermittent flight strategies. We have measured the in vitro power output...