Song learning in Varied Tits Poecile varia: sensitive period and the effects of night-sleep

Bird Study ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-91
Author(s):  
Jiangxia Yin ◽  
Tingting Xu ◽  
Zhiwei Zhang ◽  
Donglai Li ◽  
Paul Racey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Song Learning ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Night Sleep

FILIAL SOCIAL BOND FORMATION IN FRY OF THE MATERNAL MOUTHBROODING TILAPIA (PISCES: CICHLIDAE): A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Behaviour ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 136 (5) ◽  
pp. 567-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Russock
Keyword(s):  
Response Pattern ◽  
Bond Formation ◽  
Cichlid Fish ◽  
Significant Decline ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Social Bond ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Passerine Birds ◽  
Closely Related Species ◽  
Precocial Birds

AbstractThe mother - fry relationship in the maternal mouthbrooding species of tilapia has become a model of social bond formation in fish because of the relatively extensive care given to the young. This relationship has been extensively studied in Oreochromis mossambicus. In order to determine if the response pattern observed in O. mossambicus fry has broader applications, the critical experiments of these studies were replicated in two closely related species of maternal mouthbrooding tilapia, O. niloticus and O. esculentus. All fry used in the study were removed from their mother's mouth as eggs and hatched artificially in groups. The fry were also exposed to maternal models in groups, but all fry in the study were tested for their responsiveness or preferential behaviour to maternal models individually. Experiment I determined the responsiveness of fry naive to maternal models in order to establish a baseline for future comparisons. O. niloticus fry exhibited a significant decline in responsiveness to models between days 11 and 12 post-hatching while O. esculentus fry exhibited a significant decline between days 16 and 18, suggesting the possible existence of a sensitive period in these two species. In order to obtain evidence for the existence of a sensitive period, naive fry of both species in Experiment II were exposed to maternal models at their peak of responsiveness and then tested at a later age at which responsiveness in naive fry had fallen significantly. In 15 of the 18 comparisons involving the two species, exposure to a maternal model at the peak of responsiveness for naive fry prevented the later decline in responsiveness. Experiment III examined whether experience with maternal models effected how exclusively fry responded to such models in the future. It was predicted that, like O. mossambicus fry, experienced fry of both species would exhibit a decline in responsiveness to models that formed at least a partial mismatch with the fry's initial schema for maternal stimuli. This prediction was not supported. Experiment IV examined preferential behaviour. It was predicted that fry exposed to a maternal model would later behave preferentially toward whichever model of a pair formed a closer match with their schema, and not necessarily toward the model to which they had been previously exposed. Maternally naive fry were not expected to behave preferentially. These predictions were generally supported, although the effect was less vigorous or consistent than in O. mossambicus. Filial social bond formation in these species of maternal mouthbrooding tilapia appears to be characterized by strong predispositions for maternally relevant visual stimuli which require appropriate experience for their maintenance and for the induction of preferences. Since a similar developmental pattern in seen in (e.g.) song learning in passerine birds, imprinting in precocial birds and filial following in substrate spawning cichlid fish, the phenomenon appears to be of broad significance.

Silent Synapses in a Thalamo-Cortical Circuit Necessary for Song Learning in Zebra Finches

2005 ◽  
Vol 94 (6) ◽  
pp. 3698-3707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah W. Bottjer
Keyword(s):  
Failure Rate ◽  
Behavioral Plasticity ◽  
Vocal Learning ◽  
Relative Number ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Vocal Behavior ◽  
Adult Males ◽  
Silent Synapses

Developmental changes in synaptic properties may act to limit neural and behavioral plasticity associated with sensitive periods. This study characterized synaptic maturation in a glutamatergic thalamo-cortical pathway that is necessary for vocal learning in songbirds. Lesions of the projection from medial dorsolateral nucleus of the thalamus (DLM) to the cortical nucleus lateral magnocellular nucleus of the anterior nidopallium (LMAN) greatly disrupt song behavior in juvenile birds during early stages of vocal learning. However, such lesions lose the ability to disrupt vocal behavior in normal birds at 60–70 days of age, around the time that selective auditory tuning for each bird’s own song (BOS) emerges in LMAN neurons. This pattern has suggested that LMAN is involved in processing song-related information and evaluating the degree to which vocal motor output matches the tutor song to be learned. Analysis of reversed excitatory postsynaptic currents at DLM→LMAN synapses in in vitro slice preparations revealed a pronounced N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR)-mediated component in both juvenile and adult cells with no developmental decrease in the relative contribution of NMDARs to synaptic transmission. However, the synaptic failure rate at DLM→LMAN synapses in juvenile males during the sensitive period for song learning was significantly lower at depolarized potentials than at hyperpolarized potentials. In contrast, the failure rate at DLM→LMAN synapses did not differ at hyper- versus depolarized holding potentials in adult males that had completed the acquisition of a stereotyped song. This pattern indicates that juvenile cells have a higher incidence of silent (NMDAR-only) synapses, which are postsynaptically silent at hyperpolarized potentials due to the voltage-dependent gating of NMDARs. Thus the decreased involvement of the LMAN pathway in vocal behavior is mirrored by a decline in the incidence of silent synapses but not by changes in the relative number of NMDA and AMPA receptors at DLM→LMAN synapses. These findings suggest that a developmental decrease in silent synapses within LMAN may represent a neural correlate of behavioral plasticity during song learning.

scholarly journals Song preferences predict the quality of vocal learning in zebra finches

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos A. Rodriguez-Saltos ◽  
Aditya Bhise ◽  
Prasanna Karur ◽  
Ramsha Nabihah Khan ◽  
Sumin Lee ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reinforcement Schedule ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Vocal Learning ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Social Reward ◽  
Zebra Finches ◽  
Vocal Development ◽  
Song Preferences

In songbirds, learning to sing is a highly social process that likely involves social reward. Here, we hypothesized that the degree to which a juvenile songbird learns a song depends on the degree to which it finds that song rewarding to hear during vocal development. We tested this hypothesis by measuring song preferences in young birds during song learning and then analyzing their adult songs. Song preferences were measured in an operant key-pressing assay. Juvenile male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) had access to two keys, each of which was associated with a higher likelihood of playing the song of their father or that of another familiar adult ("neighbor"). To minimize the effects of exposure on learning, we implemented a reinforcement schedule that allowed us to detect preferences while balancing exposure to each song. On average, the juveniles significantly preferred the father's song early during song learning, before they were themselves singing. At around post-hatch day 60, their preference shifted to the neighbor's song. At the end of the song learning period, we recorded the juveniles' songs and compared them to the father's and the neighbor's song. All of the birds copied father's song. The accuracy with which the father's song was imitated was positively correlated with the peak strength of the preference for the father's song during the sensitive period. Our results show that preference for a social stimulus, in this case a vocalization, predicted social learning during development.

scholarly journals Developmental shifts in gene expression in the auditory forebrain during the sensitive period for song learning

2009 ◽  
Vol 69 (7) ◽  
pp. 437-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. London ◽  
Shu Dong ◽  
Kirstin Replogle ◽  
David F. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Auditory Forebrain

Androgens and Isolation From Adult Tutors Differentially Affect the Development of Songbird Neurons Critical to Vocal Plasticity

2001 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick S. Livingston ◽  
Richard Mooney
Keyword(s):  
Action Potentials ◽  
Developmental Time ◽  
Song Learning ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Intrinsic Properties ◽  
Electrophysiological Properties ◽  
Single Action ◽  
Androgen Treatment ◽  
Half Height ◽  
Song Development

Song learning in oscine birds occurs during a juvenile sensitive period. One idea is that this sensitive period is regulated by changes in the electrophysiological properties of neurons in the telencephalic song nucleus lateral magnocellular nucleus of the anterior neostriatum (LMAN), a structure critical for song development but not adult singing. A corollary of this idea is that manipulations affecting the pace and quality of song learning will concomitantly affect the development of LMAN′s electrophysiological properties. Manipulations known to affect song development include treating juvenile male zebra finches with exogenous androgens, which results in abnormally truncated adult songs, and isolation of the juvenile from adult tutors and their songs, which extends the sensitive period for song learning. Previously, we showed that synaptic transmission in LMAN changes over normal song development and that these changes are accelerated or retarded, respectively, by androgen treatment and isolation from an adult tutor. The intrinsic properties of LMAN neurons afford another potential target for regulation by steroid hormones and experience of adult tutors. Indeed previous studies showed that the capacity for LMAN neurons to fire action potentials in bursts, due to a low-threshold calcium spike, and the width of single action potentials in LMAN, wane over development. Here we analyzed these and other intrinsic electrophysiological features of LMAN neurons over normal development, then tested whether either early androgen treatment or isolating juveniles from adult tutors affected the timing of these changes. The present study shows that androgen but not isolation treatment alters the developmental time at which LMAN neurons progress from the bursting to nonbursting phenotype. In addition, other intrinsic properties, including the half-height spike width and the magnitude of the spike afterhyperpolarization (AHP), were found to change markedly over development but only changes to the AHP were androgen sensitive. Interestingly of all of the synaptic and intrinsic electrophysiological properties in LMAN studied to date, only the half-height spike width continues to change in the late juvenile stages of song learning. Furthermore raising juveniles in isolation from an adult tutor transiently delays the maturation of this property. The present results underscore that beyond their effects on LMAN′s synaptic properties, both androgens and adult tutor experience are potent and selective regulators of the intrinsic properties of LMAN neurons.

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