时间:2025-07-09 19:37:14 来源:网络整理编辑:知識
Certain songbirds have a pretty human-sounding way of learning their special tunes: They listen to t
Certain songbirds have a pretty human-sounding way of learning their special tunes: They listen to their fathers.
Scientists have known that zebra finches -- one of the most oft-studied songbirds -- learn their songs by listening to their dads, but a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications takes that a step further. Researchers are hunting for the neural pathways that allow the young finches to figure out how to sing.
This may seem like pretty esoteric work, but research into song learning in birds could teach us about our own neurological development.
SEE ALSO:Drunk birds slur when they sing, tooZebra finches are a favorite of neuroscience researchers because of their intriguing song-learning behavior. While both male and female zebra finches have the ability to make various vocalizations, only male zebra finches develop a song, which they later use to attract a mate.
Up until now, scientists have suspected that a specific part of the brain helps this little bird learn and memorize the song he will use to attract a mate. However, the new research is able to demonstrate the way neurons in a particular brain region aid in the song-learning process.
Young zebra finches typically start learning their songs by listening to their fathers in the first four months of their life, said Yoko Yazaki-Sugiyama, an assistant professor and brain science expert at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, and one of the study’s authors.
“The first one month or so, they don’t sing -- but they are listening to what their fathers sing,” she explained. “So a month after, they are starting to sing by themselves, but in the beginning their songs are not really matured -- more like a baby babbling. And then at that time what they’re doing is hearing their own song and trying to match their own vocals to the tutor song.”
After about 90 to 100 days of life, their songs become stable, she said.
Previous research has suggested that a specific area of the brain known as the caudomedial nidopallium, or NCM, is the place where young zebra finches store memories of the “tutor song,” or the song their fathers sing to teach them, when they hear it.
This brain region is similar to the auditory cortex found in humans, the part of the brain that helps process sound information.
“But none of these [previous] studies had shown what kind of neural activity was happening in this period,” Yazaki-Sugiyama said.
She and colleague Shin Yanagihara, also of the Okinawa Institute, decided to record neural activity in the brains of juvenile zebra finches in order to find out.
The researchers gathered 20 birds, all between 50 and 92 days old, and exposed them to nine different types of sound stimuli. These included a tutor song, as well as recordings of the young birds’ own singing and songs from other species.
After exposure to the different stimuli, the researchers found that a certain subset of neurons in the NCM became selective -- from that point on, they would only fire in response to a certain type of song.
The majority of the neurons that did so became selective to the tutor song, although a few of them became selective to other stimuli, such as the baby bird’s own vocalizations.
This activity suggested that these neurons were critical to storing memories of specific types of sounds.
Interestingly, the researchers found that as the young finches practiced and perfected their own songs, there was not much change in the number of neurons that were selective for the tutor song over time.
This suggested that the neurons’ selective nature was driven by simply hearing the tutor song in the first place, rather than working on it themselves -- otherwise, as the birds practiced and improved their songs over time, the researchers would have expected to see the number of selective neurons increase.
It’s possible this type of research could even help lay the groundwork for later studies on human development
In this way, the results supported the idea that these neurons were really responding to hearing the tutor song, and not the young bird’s attempts at developing his own song.
The researchers were also able to demonstrate that the selectivity of these neurons lessened -- that is, the neurons were more likely to respond to other stimuli -- if the researchers interrupted the flow of certain chemicals in the brain that naturally help groups of connected neurons (what’s known as a “neural circuit”) communicate with one another.
Via GiphyThey also observed a decrease in selectivity while the birds were asleep.
These observations suggest that the behavior of selective neurons is still dependent on certain conditions in the brain, such as the health of neural circuits.
A bird that experiences trauma or damage to this part of its brain might have trouble forming these types of memories, for instance.
In the future, Yazaki-Sugiyama hopes that these findings can help inform additional research on how the birds’ early experiences might affect their cognitive functions later in life.
And she noted that it’s possible this type of research could even help lay the groundwork for later studies on human development and the learning of languages.
At the very least, the study demonstrates that there’s still much we can learn from one of nature’s most beloved phenomena.
Two astronauts just installed a new parking spot on the International Space Station2025-07-09 19:29
突發 !濃眉90度崴腳受傷!詹姆斯末節15分!這比賽看哭我了…(詹姆斯有沒有全明星mvp)2025-07-09 19:20
【波盈足球】 歐冠世足新秀甩開麵具束縛頭槌建功 曼城連番遭逼平 ( 萊比錫,迪奧 )2025-07-09 19:15
騎士涼了?32分慘敗!全明星陣容,全明星賽防守!這場比賽不容易!(詹姆斯全明星場均出手次數)2025-07-09 19:03
Samsung Galaxy Note7 teardown reveals the magic behind the phone's iris scanner2025-07-09 18:47
再見西決,再見太陽!聯盟不僅欠保羅一個總冠軍 ,還欠一個MVP(保羅拿冠軍了嗎)2025-07-09 18:24
喬丹後首人!保羅總決賽首秀32分9助攻 ,帶隊拿下總決賽首戰(保羅拿總冠軍)2025-07-09 17:30
攜手“雅思”,運動科學研究院亮相 ,佳得樂如何打開中國市場遠景2025-07-09 17:29
Metallica to seek and destroy your eardrums with new album this fall2025-07-09 17:07
2023黑珍珠餐廳指南發布 ,上海榜單中黃浦餐廳超三分之一2025-07-09 17:01
Tesla's rumored P100D could make Ludicrous mode even more Ludicrous2025-07-09 19:31
尤文圖斯聯賽八連勝進14球失0球 已經偷摸爬上意甲聯賽第二名2025-07-09 19:27
尤文圖斯聯賽八連勝進14球失0球 已經偷摸爬上意甲聯賽第二名2025-07-09 19:19
今日賽事 :意甲(都靈vs維羅納)2025-07-09 19:09
Honda's all2025-07-09 18:39
國羽衛冕團體亞錦賽 南京姑娘高昉潔5戰5勝立大功!2025-07-09 18:28
原創 西甲即將結束 ,梅西又要追平一項曆史 !留給他的紀錄真的不多了!(本澤馬進球和c羅慶祝)2025-07-09 18:20
【波盈足球】 足球「很羨慕梅西、魔笛」 前西班牙隊長遺憾告別國家隊 ( 拉莫斯,國家隊 )2025-07-09 17:39
Michael Phelps says goodbye to the pool with Olympic gold2025-07-09 17:38
今日賽事 :英超(曼聯vs萊斯特城)2025-07-09 17:06