Nature Communications (Oct 2020)

An avian cortical circuit for chunking tutor song syllables into simple vocal-motor units

  • Emily L. Mackevicius,
  • Michael T. L. Happ,
  • Michale S. Fee

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18732-x
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 16

Abstract

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Young songbirds learn to imitate their parents’ songs. Here, the authors find that, in baby birds, neurons in a brain region at the interface of auditory and motor circuits signal the onsets of song syllables during both tutoring and babbling, suggesting a specific neural mechanism for vocal imitation.