Rudimentary substrates for vocal learning in a suboscine

Wan-chun Liu (), Kazuhiro Wada, Erich D. Jarvis and Fernando Nottebohm
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Wan-chun Liu: Laboratory of Animal Behavior, The Rockefeller University
Kazuhiro Wada: Hokkaido University
Erich D. Jarvis: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Duke University Medical Center
Fernando Nottebohm: Laboratory of Animal Behavior, The Rockefeller University

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Vocal learning has evolved in only a few groups of mammals and birds. The key neuroanatomical and behavioural links bridging vocal learners and non-learners are still unknown. Here we show that a non-vocal-learning suboscine, the eastern phoebe, expresses neural and behavioural substrates that are associated with vocal learning in closely related oscine songbirds. In phoebes, a specialized forebrain region in the intermediate arcopallium seems homologous to the oscine song nucleus RA (robust nucleus of arcopallium) by its neural connections, expression of glutamate receptors and singing-dependent immediate-early gene expression. Lesion of this RA-like region induces subtle but consistent song changes. Moreover, the unlearned phoebe song unexpectedly develops through a protracted ontogeny. These features provide the first evidence of forebrain vocal-motor control in suboscines, which has not been encountered in other avian non-vocal-learners, and offer a potential configuration of brain and behaviour from which vocal learning might have evolved.

Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3082

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