The Forebrain Song System Mediates Predictive Call Timing in Female and Male Zebra Finches
The Forebrain Song System Mediates Predictive Call Timing in Female and Male Zebra Finches
复制标题
DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2015.12.037
复制
发表时间：
2016-02-08
期刊：
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
Tchernichovski, Ofer
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Benichov, Jonathan I.;Benezra, Sam E.;Tchernichovski, Ofer
有声学习者和非学习者的二分法是动物交际研究中的一个根本区别。雄性斑马雀(Tae-niopygia guttata)是发声学习者，会学到类似于它们导师的歌曲，而雌性斑马雀只能发出天生的叫声。短叫声的声学结构是由雄性和雌性产生的，不被学习。然而，这些呼叫可以在不同的个人之间精确协调。为了研究鸟类如何学习同步它们的叫声，我们开发了一个发声机器人，它可以与伴侣鸟交换叫声。因为鸟类对机器人的应答有固定的延迟，所以我们可以对它进行编程，通过发出可能与鸟的叫声一致的叫声来扰乱每只鸟的反应。几分钟内，鸟就学会了通过调整回应的时间来避免这种破坏性的掩饰(干扰)。值得注意的是，女性比男性表现出更大的适应时间可塑性。此外，当受到含有干扰因素的复杂节奏的挑战时，鸟类会动态地调整它们的叫声时间，以应对干扰。阻断鸣叫系统的皮质输出极大地降低了鸟类反应时间的精确度，并取消了它们避免干扰的能力。令人惊讶的是，我们在男性和女性身上都观察到了这种影响，这表明女性的歌唱系统是有功能的，而不是退化的。我们认为，下行的前脑投射，包括歌曲产生途径，作为一种通用的感觉运动通讯系统发挥作用。在呼叫的情况下，它使发声时机的可塑性促进社会互动，而在歌曲的情况下，可塑性扩展到声音结构的发展变化。
The dichotomy between vocal learners and non-learners is a fundamental distinction in the study of animal communication. Male zebra finches (Tae-niopygia guttata) are vocal learners that acquire a song resembling their tutors', whereas females can only produce innate calls. The acoustic structure of short calls, produced by both males and females, is not learned. However, these calls can be precisely coordinated across individuals. To examine how birds learn to synchronize their calls, we developed a vocal robot that exchanges calls with a partner bird. Because birds answer the robot with stereotyped latencies, we could program it to disrupt each bird's responses by producing calls that are likely to coincide with the bird's. Within minutes, the birds learned to avoid this disruptive masking (jamming) by adjusting the timing of their responses. Notably, females exhibited greater adaptive timing plasticity than males. Further, when challenged with complex rhythms containing jamming elements, birds dynamically adjusted the timing of their calls in anticipation of jamming. Blocking the song system cortical output dramatically reduced the precision of birds' response timing and abolished their ability to avoid jamming. Surprisingly, we observed this effect in both males and females, indicating that the female song system is functional rather than vestigial. We suggest that descending fore-brain projections, including the song-production pathway, function as a general-purpose sensorimotor communication system. In the case of calls, it enables plasticity in vocal timing to facilitate social interactions, whereas in the case of songs, plasticity extends to developmental changes in vocal structure.