Past events

Vocal production and learning rely on the evaluation of auditory feedback. We use the songbird as a model system for exploring how auditory feedback in vocalizing animals is represented by auditory brain areas, and how auditory signals are gated back into premotor areas involved in song production and learning. We expose juvenile zebra finches to distorted auditory feedback and record from neurons in field L, an avian forebrain area thought to be analogous to mammalian primary auditory cortex. Most field L neurons in our ongoing study do not respond to auditory perturbation during singing, despite their motor-related firing being similar to auditory responses to playback of the bird’s own song. We argue that this behaviour of field L neurons is reminiscent of mirror neurons in primate inferior frontal cortex. In adult birds, we demonstrate modulation and gating of auditory and spontaneous cerebral activity by the thalamic nucleus uveaformis (Uva): The normal dependence of premotor-like spike patterns (bursts) on the behavioural state can be reversed by pharmacological manipulation of Uva activity. Our results show that avian thalamic relay neurons have a function that is reminiscent of a mixture of functions attributed to relay and reticular neurons in the mammalian thalamus. In summary, our findings of corollary motor discharges in auditory brain areas and of explicit thalamic gating mechanisms help to advance the understanding of auditory feedback processing and sensorimotor integration for complex learned behaviors.