Vocal learning from social partners is crucial for the successful development of communication in a wide range of species. Social interactions organize attention and enhance motivation to learn species-typical behaviour. However, the neurobiological mechanisms connecting social motivation and vocal learning are unknown. Using zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), a ubiquitous model for vocal lea...

Zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song syllables often include harmonically related frequency components. These harmonics may be suppressed, and this differential emphasis varies between the syllables in a song and between individual birds' songs. These patterns of harmonic suppression are timbre. Individual syllables' patterns of harmonic suppression are constant with adult males' songs. Young...

Fast moving animals depend on cues derived from the optic flow on their retina. Optic flow from translational locomotion includes information about the three-dimensional composition of the environment, while optic flow experienced during a rotational self motion does not. Thus, a saccadic gaze strategy that segregates rotations from translational movements during locomotion will facilitate extr...

We examined how 61 young zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) males copied song from 5 adult tutors. Zebra finch song consists of a string of 5-15 distinct syllables, and these syllables were copied as chunks, or strings of consecutive syllables (modal length = 3). The silent interval between 2 syllables was copied as part of the syllable after the silence. Copied chunks had boundaries that fell a...

Proposal for Construction of a Physical Map of the Genome of the Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia guttata) 9 January 2005 Proposal submitted by: David Clayton, Ph.D., Professor Cell & Structural Biology, Neuroscience Member, Institute for Genomic Biology B107 Chemical & Life Sciences Laboratory University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 61801 phone 217-244-3668, fax 503-213-6611 [email protected] http://w...

Husbandry procedures and facility settings, such as low-frequency fire alarms, can produce noises in a laboratory environment that cause stress to animals used research. However, most of the data demonstrating harmful effects have, consequently, led adaptations management, have largely come from rodents with little known impacts on avian behavior physiology. Here we examined whether exposure ro...

Numerous studies indicate interspecies variation in the ontogeny of the adrenocortical response in birds; however, little is known about the extent of interindividual variation in avian young. Toward this end, we examined the ontogeny and interindividual variation in the adrenocortical response in zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) nestlings. We measured baseline and stress-induced total (bound ...

The zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata castanotis is a songbird commonly used in the laboratory, particularly for studies of vocal learning, neurobiology, and physiology. Within the laboratory, it is important to adopt careful husbandry practices that allow for normal development of the birds. For example, their song is a learned trait, passed culturally from adult males to juveniles, and thus its...