The Neuroethology of Birdsong

ISBN-13: 9783030346829 / Angielski / Twarda / 2020 / 268 str.

Jon T. Sakata; Sarah C. Woolley; Arthur N. Popper

Spis treści

PROPOSED CHAPTERS (with proposed senior authors)

 

1.  Approaching birdsong from multiple levels of analysis - Jon T. Sakata and Sarah C. Woolley

 

This chapter will provide a broad overview of birdsong research from multiple levels of analysis. We will adopt Tinbergen’s landmark framework to provide summaries of research into the mechanisms, development, evolutionary history, and adaptive significance of birdsong (e.g., the importance of song performance to reproductive success). This introductory chapter will highlight key concepts to be discussed in greater depth in subsequent chapters and will emphasize the complementarity of birdsong research to broader research on vocal communication in vertebrates.   

 

2. History of birdsong research - Jonathan Prather and Donald Kroodsma

 

This chapter will present a historical overview of the field of birdsong. The authors will review the works of researchers who paved the way for the modern era of birdsong (e.g., Thorpe, Marler, Nottebohm, Konishi), highlight the importance of the comparative approach, outline central questions in birdsong, and discuss novel methodologies to answer classic questions. 

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3. Bridging birdsong and speech - Jon T. Sakata and Patricia Kuhl

 

Songbirds are one of the few vertebrate species that, like humans, are not born with their vocal communication signals but must learn the structure of their species-typical vocalizations during development. Further, the process of song learning in songbird^1200 times). The chapter will discuss such diverse topics such as critical periods, sensory refinement across development, social reinforcement and contingency, learning in a social context, sensorimotor learning, reinforcement models for sensory and sensorimotor learning, species constraints on song learning, and entrainment. 

 

4. Neural mechanisms of vocal learning - Mimi Kao and Michael S. Brainard

 

This chapter will provide a comprehensive review of the neural mechanisms underlying vocal learning, theoretical models of vocal learning, and empirical tests of these models. The authors will provide detailed descriptions of the contributions of neurons in the canonical ‘song system’ and auditory processing circuits to vocal learning and plasticity. In addition, this chapter will review recent advances into our understanding of how neuromodulatory inputs into song and auditory circuits (e.g., from the ventral tegmental area, locus coeruleus, and nucleus basalis) shape the process of vocal learning. This chapter will also review shared and distinct mechanisms underlying sensory vs. sensorimotor learning as well as recent advances into the contribution of brain areas outside the canonical song system to song learning.

 

5. Neural mechanisms of song control - Michael Long and Tim Gardner

 

This chapter will review the exciting new advances in our understanding of how neurons in the song system control song production. The chapter will provide an overview of theoretical models of song control and empirical support for such models and will discuss sensorimotor integration, efference copy, and feedback signals. The authors will also summarize recent technological advances to probe neural function, including optogenetics, miniaturized Peltier devices, and micro-imaging techniques.

 

6. Songbirds as models to understanding basal ganglia function - Arthur Leblois and David Perkel

 

Area X is a basal ganglia structure that is critical for song learning and control and that resembles basal ganglia structures in mammals. This chapter will review the microcircuitry within Area X, the homologies between Area X and mammalian basal ganglia circuits, and the function of Area X neuronal circuits to juvenile song learning and to adult song control and plasticity. In addition, the authors will discuss how midbrain circuitry influences Area X function and, relatedly, how songbirds can help us understand the neural processes underlying Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease. 

           

7. Auditory processing for social decision-making - Sarah C. Woolley and Sarah M.N. Woolley

 

Both male and female songbirds heavily rely on auditory information from conspecifics to make important social decisions; for example, female songbirds select their mates based on the quality of his song. This chapter will review the advances in understanding mechanisms of auditory processing for social decision-making. The authors will synthesize neurophysiological, cellular, and neuroimaging data to present an integrative framework for understanding sensory processing for social decision-making. 

 

8. Regulation and modulation of auditory processing - Luke Remage-Healey and Yoko Yazaki-Sugiyama

 

The processing of ethologically relevant stimuli is modulated by a variety of factors including behavioral state (awake vs. sleeping vs. anesthetized; singing vs. quiescent), developmental history, and species. This chapter will review how such factors influence auditory responses in songbirds and discuss the neural and endocrine mechanisms (e.g., norepinephrine, acetylcholine, sex steroid hormones) that could underlie such modulation of auditory responses. 

 

9. Computational approaches to understanding the processing and production of birdsong - Frederic Theunissen and Kamal Sen

 

Computational approaches have yielded important insights into how the nervous system encodes and decodes information. Such approaches have allowed birdsong researchers to uncover, for example, the complexity of receptive fields in the songbird brain as well as the hierarchical nature of sensory processing. This chapter will provide a comparative and in-depth overview of computational approaches to understanding both the processing and production of birdsong.

 

10. Genetic architectures underlying vocal learning and control - Sarah London and Constance Scharff

 

Understanding how genes regulate complex behaviors like birdsong is a fundamental pursuit in behavioral neuroscience. Indeed, because of the numerous similarities in vocal learning processes between songbirds and humans, revealing the genes that influence vocal learning in songbirds can provide profound insight into the genes that could underlie variation in vocal learning in humans, including genes underlying developmental and communicative disorders. This chapter will provide a comprehensive review of the genes that have been found to influence song learning in songbirds, in particular in the zebra finch, with a focus on genes that have similarly been implicated in speech acquisition in humans (e.g., foxp2, cntnap2).

 

11. Cognitive contributions to song perception and production - Tim Gentner

 

The songs of a variety of songbirds, including European starlings and Bengalese finches, have complex acoustic and syntactic structures and live in communities with complex social structures. Consequently, these songbirds offer a powerful opportunity to reveal the cognitive mechanisms underlying the processing and production of complex vocalizations. In addition, cognitive processes such as habituation and individual recognition regulate the processing and production of song in a wide range of songbird species. This chapter will review the exciting advances in our understanding of how avian brains process complex auditory signals.

 

12. Functional significance of vocal performance - Jeff Podos

 

Because females decide to mate with individual males based, in part, on the the quality of their song, it is critical to understand the features of song that represent “song quality”. This chapter will review the various features of song considered to represent song quality, including repertoire size, complexity, and difficulty of performance, as well as the empirical support for the importance of these features to reproductive success. Further, the chapter will provide an overview of the peripheral and neurobiological control of these features in order to reveal potential substrates that selection acts upon.  

 

13. Comparative studies of songbirds to reveal molecular mechanisms underlying the evolution of song learning - Kazuhiro Wada, Kazuo Okanoya, and Erich Jarvis

 

Vocal learning has evolved independently in three clades of birds – songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these evolutionary events remain elusive. With the utilization of high-throughput technologies to rapidly sequence genomes and analyze gene expression, we have recently gained deeper insight into the molecular underpinnings of song learning evolution. This chapter will provide an overview of approaches to study the evolution of song learning in birds and a review of the recent literature on candidate genes and molecules for vocal learning. The authors will also provide an outlook on the future of advances in the field, including the integration of evo-devo approaches and behavioral genetics to the study of song evolution.  

O autorze

Dr. Jon T. Sakata is an Associate Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada

Dr. Sarah C. Woolley is an Associate Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada 

Dr. Richard R. Fay is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at Loyola, Chicago

Dr. Arthur N. Popper is Professor Emeritus and research professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park

Blurb

This volume provides comprehensive, integrative, and comparative perspectives on birdsong and underscores the importance of birdsong research to behavioral and systems neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and biomedical research.   

Scaling the Levels of Birdsong Analysis

Jon T. Sakata and Sarah C. Woolley

 Neural Circuits Underlying Vocal Learning in Songbirds

 Jon T. Sakata and Yoko Yazaki-Sugiyama

 New Insights into the Avian Song System and Neuronal Control of Learned Vocalizations

Karagh Murphy, Koedi S. Lawley, Perry Smith, and Jonathan F. Prather

The Song Circuit as a Model of Basal Ganglia Function 

Arthur Leblois and David J. Perkel 

Integrating Form and Function in the Songbird Auditory Forebrain

Sarah C. Woolley and Sarah M. N. Woolley

 Hormonal Regulation of Avian Auditory Processing

Luke Remage-Healey

The Neuroethology of Vocal Communication in Songbirds: Production and Perception of a Call Repertoire

Julie E. Elie and Frédéric E. Theunissen

Linking Features of Genomic Function to Fundamental Features of Learned Vocal Communication

Sarah E. London

Vocal Performance in Songbirds: From Mechanisms to Evolution

Jeffrey Podos and HaCheol Sung