The Role of Auditory Feedback in Birdsong
- Creators
- Konishi, Masakazu
Abstract
Young songbirds memorize a tutor song and use the memory trace as a template to shape their own song by auditory feedback. Major issues in birdsong research include the neural sites and mechanisms for song memory and auditory feedback. The brain song control system contains neurons with both premotor and auditory function. Yet no evidence so far shows that they respond to the bird's own song during singing. Also, no neurons have been found to respond to perturbation of auditory feedback in the brain area that is thought to be involved in the feedback control of song. The phenomenon of gating in which neurons respond to playback of the bird's own song only during sleep or under anesthesia is the sole known evidence for control of auditory input to the song system. It is, however, not known whether the gating is involved in switching between the premotor and auditory function of neurons in the song control system.
Additional Information
© 2004 New York Academy of Sciences. I thank Phil Zeigler and Peter Marler for their critical and caring comments on this paper. Few editors perform theirs duties as conscientiously as these two. Rich Mooney and Dan Margoliash also provided valuable comments. The preparation of this article was supported by National Institutes of Health grant MH55984.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 62437
- DOI
- 10.1196/annals.1298.010
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20151130-075950060
- MH55984
- NIH
- Created
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2015-11-30Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field