Grant: Project Grant

Many social animals, including humans, communicate using vocalizations. Listeners can use vocalizations to gain information about the signaler, including their identity and even their emotional state. Auditory learning is important for the proper perception of vocal signals because it allows individuals to learn the meaning of communicative sounds and to recognize individuals. Auditory learning is additionally important in a handful of species, that, like humans, learn their vocal communication signals during development. For this vocal learning, individuals must memorize the sounds of communication signals in order to learn how to produce them. Our research will use songbirds to reveal how the brain controls the auditory learning of vocal communication signals. Like humans, songbirds learn their vocal signals (songs) during development by first memorizing the vocalizations of adults (auditory learning) and then learning how to produce these memorized sounds through vocal practice. In addition, songbirds also learn to recognize one another by the sound of their voice. We will investigate the extent to which neurochemicals, like norepinephrine and dopamine, regulate how the brain learns vocal signals. In particular, we will reveal the extent to which norepinephrine and dopamine are released in the brain during listening and auditory memory formation, how these neurochemicals can promote the auditory learning, and how they alter how the brain encodes and responds to vocal signals. In humans, dysfunction in vocal communication following injury or disease can be devastating for the health of an individual and society at large. Songbirds are some of the few species that undergo vocal learning using brain circuits highly similar to those in humans. Our research will leverage the similarities between songbirds and humans to help elucidate fundamental mechanisms underlying auditory learning and memory critical for communication and social behavior.