A Basal Ganglia Circuit Sufficient to Guide Birdsong Learning.

ABSTRACT: Learning vocal behaviors, like speech and birdsong, is thought to rely on continued performance evaluation. Whether candidate performance evaluation circuits in the brain are sufficient to guide vocal learning is not known. Here, we test the sufficiency of VTA projections to the vocal basal ganglia in singing zebra finches, a songbird species that learns to produce a complex and stereotyped multi-syllabic courtship song during development. We optogenetically manipulate VTA axon terminals in singing birds contingent on how the pitch of an individual song syllable is naturally performed. We find that optical inhibition and excitation of VTA terminals are each sufficient to reliably guide learned changes in song. Inhibition and excitation have opponent effects on future performances of target

SUBMITTER: Xiao L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5918681 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature