A blueprint for vocal learning: auditory predispositions from brains genomes

作者：Wheatcroft David^*; Qvarnstroem Anna

来源：Biology Letters, 2015, 11(8): 20150155.

DOI：10.1098/rsbl.2015.0155

• auditory predispositions
• bird song
• memory formation
• perceptual biases
• songbirds
• vocal learning

Memorizing and producing complex strings of sound are requirements for spoken human language. We share these behaviours with likely more than 4000 species of songbirds, making birds our primary model for studying the cognitive basis of vocal learning and, more generally, an important model for how memories are encoded in the brain. In songbirds, as in humans, the sounds that a juvenile learns later in life depend on auditory memories formed early in development. Experiments on a wide variety of songbird specie's suggest that the formation and lability of these auditory memories, in turn, depend on auditory predispositions that stimulate learning when a juvenile hears relevant, species-typical sounds. We review evidence that variation in key features of these auditory predispositions are determined by variation in genes underlying the development of the auditory system. We argue that increased investigation of the neuronal basis of auditory predispositions expressed early in life in conibination with modem comparative genomic approaches may provide insights into the evolution of vocal learning.

• 出版日期2015-8-1