Birdsong as a window into language origins and evolutionary neuroscience.

ABSTRACT: Humans and songbirds share the key trait of vocal learning, manifested in speech and song, respectively. Striking analogies between these behaviours include that both are acquired during developmental critical periods when the brain's ability for vocal learning peaks. Both behaviours show similarities in the overall architecture of their underlying brain areas, characterized by cortico-striato-thalamic loops and direct projections from cortical neurons onto brainstem motor neurons that control the vocal organs. These neural analogies extend to the molecular level, with certain song control regions sharing convergent transcriptional profiles with speech-related regions in the human brain. This evolutionary convergence offers an unprecedented opportunity to decipher the shared neurogenetic u

SUBMITTER: Aamodt CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6895547 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature