A role for descending auditory cortical projections in songbird vocal learning
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elife-02152-v2.pdf
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5.72 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
488ff36ea4af13cdcae956eb3b6c052d
Author(s)
Mandelblat-Cerf, Yael
Las, Liora
Denissenko, Natalia
Fee, Michale Sean
Date Issued
June 2014
Journal
eLife
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd.
Citation
Mandelblat-Cerf et al. “A role for descending auditory cortical projections in songbird vocal learning” eLife 2014, 3(June 2014): e02152 © 2014 Mandelblat-Cerf et al
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Many learned motor behaviors are acquired by comparing ongoing behavior with an internal representation of correct performance, rather than using an explicit external reward. For example, juvenile songbirds learn to sing by comparing their song with the memory of a tutor song. At present, the brain regions subserving song evaluation are not known. In this study, we report several findings suggesting that song evaluation involves an avian 'cortical' area previously shown to project to the dopaminergic midbrain and other downstream targets. We find that this ventral portion of the intermediate arcopallium (AIV) receives inputs from auditory cortical areas, and that lesions of AIV result in significant deficits in vocal learning. Additionally, AIV neurons exhibit fast responses to disruptive auditory feedback presented during singing, but not during nonsinging periods. Our findings suggest that auditory cortical areas may guide learning by transmitting song evaluation signals to the dopaminergic midbrain and/or other subcortical targets.
MIT Department
McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02152.001
