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Functional MRI of the zebra finch brain during song stimulation suggests a lateralized response topography.

ABSTRACT: Electrophysiological and activity-dependent gene expression studies of birdsong have contributed to the understanding of the neural representation of natural sounds. However, we have limited knowledge about the overall spatial topography of song representation in the avian brain. Here, we adapt the noninvasive functional MRI method in mildly sedated zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) to localize and characterize song driven brain activation. Based on the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal, we observed a differential topographic responsiveness to playback of bird's own song, tutor song, conspecific song, and a pure tone as a nonsong stimulus. The bird's own song caused a stronger response than the tutor song or tone in higher auditory areas. This effect was more pronounced in the medial parts of the forebrain. We found left-right hemispheric asymmetry in sensory responses to songs, with significant discrimination between stimuli observed only in the right hemisphere. This finding suggests that perceptual responses might be lateralized in zebra finches. In addition to establishing the feasibility of functional MRI in sedated songbirds, our results demonstrate spatial coding of song in the zebra finch forebrain, based on developmental familiarity and experience.

SUBMITTER: Voss HU

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1965570 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Functional MRI of the zebra finch brain during song stimulation suggests a lateralized response topography.

Voss Henning U HU Tabelow Karsten K Polzehl Jörg J Tchernichovski Ofer O Maul Kristen K KK Salgado-Commissariat Delanthi D Ballon Douglas D Helekar Santosh A SA

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20070611 25

Electrophysiological and activity-dependent gene expression studies of birdsong have contributed to the understanding of the neural representation of natural sounds. However, we have limited knowledge about the overall spatial topography of song representation in the avian brain. Here, we adapt the noninvasive functional MRI method in mildly sedated zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) to localize and characterize song driven brain activation. Based on the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal ...[more]

PMID: 17563380

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Project description:The human capacity for speech and vocal music depends on vocal imitation. Songbirds, in contrast to non-human primates, share this vocal production learning with humans. The process through which birds and humans learn many of their vocalizations as well as the underlying neural system exhibit a number of striking parallels and have been widely researched. In contrast, rhythm, a key feature of language, and music, has received surprisingly little attention in songbirds. Investigating temporal periodicity in bird song has the potential to inform the relationship between neural mechanisms and behavioral output and can also provide insight into the biology and evolution of musicality. Here we present a method to analyze birdsong for an underlying rhythmic regularity. Using the intervals from one note onset to the next as input, we found for each bird an isochronous sequence of time stamps, a "signal-derived pulse," or pulse(S), of which a subset aligned with all note onsets of the bird's song. Fourier analysis corroborated these results. To determine whether this finding was just a byproduct of the duration of notes and intervals typical for zebra finches but not dependent on the individual duration of elements and the sequence in which they are sung, we compared natural songs to models of artificial songs. Note onsets of natural song deviated from the pulse(S) significantly less than those of artificial songs with randomized note and gap durations. Thus, male zebra finch song has the regularity required for a listener to extract a perceived pulse (pulse(P)), as yet untested. Strikingly, in our study, pulses(S) that best fit note onsets often also coincided with the transitions between sub-note elements within complex notes, corresponding to neuromuscular gestures. Gesture durations often equaled one or more pulse(S) periods. This suggests that gesture duration constitutes the basic element of the temporal hierarchy of zebra finch song rhythm, an interesting parallel to the hierarchically structured components of regular rhythms in human music.

Project description:Culture is typically viewed as consisting of traits inherited epigenetically, through social learning. However, cultural diversity has species-typical constraints, presumably of genetic origin. A celebrated, if contentious, example is whether a universal grammar constrains syntactic diversity in human languages. Oscine songbirds exhibit song learning and provide biologically tractable models of culture: members of a species show individual variation in song and geographically separated groups have local song dialects. Different species exhibit distinct song cultures, suggestive of genetic constraints. Without such constraints, innovations and copying errors should cause unbounded variation over multiple generations or geographical distance, contrary to observations. Here we report an experiment designed to determine whether wild-type song culture might emerge over multiple generations in an isolated colony founded by isolates, and, if so, how this might happen and what type of social environment is required. Zebra finch isolates, unexposed to singing males during development, produce song with characteristics that differ from the wild-type song found in laboratory or natural colonies. In tutoring lineages starting from isolate founders, we quantified alterations in song across tutoring generations in two social environments: tutor-pupil pairs in sound-isolated chambers and an isolated semi-natural colony. In both settings, juveniles imitated the isolate tutors but changed certain characteristics of the songs. These alterations accumulated over learning generations. Consequently, songs evolved towards the wild-type in three to four generations. Thus, species-typical song culture can appear de novo. Our study has parallels with language change and evolution. In analogy to models in quantitative genetics, we model song culture as a multigenerational phenotype partly encoded genetically in an isolate founding population, influenced by environmental variables and taking multiple generations to emerge.

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Functional MRI of the zebra finch brain during song stimulation suggests a lateralized response topography.

Publications

Functional MRI of the zebra finch brain during song stimulation suggests a lateralized response topography.

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