Neural dynamics underlying birdsong practice and performance

Jonnathan Singh Alvarado, Jack Goffinet, Valerie Michael, William Liberti, Jordan Hatfield, Timothy Gardner, John Pearson () and Richard Mooney ()
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Jonnathan Singh Alvarado: Duke University
Jack Goffinet: Duke University
Valerie Michael: Duke University
William Liberti: University of California Berkeley
Jordan Hatfield: Duke University
Timothy Gardner: University of Oregon
John Pearson: Duke University
Richard Mooney: Duke University

Nature, 2021, vol. 599, issue 7886, 635-639

Abstract: Abstract Musical and athletic skills are learned and maintained through intensive practice to enable precise and reliable performance for an audience. Consequently, understanding such complex behaviours requires insight into how the brain functions during both practice and performance. Male zebra finches learn to produce courtship songs that are more varied when alone and more stereotyped in the presence of females1. These differences are thought to reflect song practice and performance, respectively2,3, providing a useful system in which to explore how neurons encode and regulate motor variability in these two states. Here we show that calcium signals in ensembles of spiny neurons (SNs) in the basal ganglia are highly variable relative to their cortical afferents during song practice. By contrast, SN calcium signals are strongly suppressed during female-directed performance, and optogenetically suppressing SNs during practice strongly reduces vocal variability. Unsupervised learning methods4,5 show that specific SN activity patterns map onto distinct song practice variants. Finally, we establish that noradrenergic signalling reduces vocal variability by directly suppressing SN activity. Thus, SN ensembles encode and drive vocal exploration during practice, and the noradrenergic suppression of SN activity promotes stereotyped and precise song performance for an audience.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04004-1

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