“Implanted Memories Teach Birds a Song.”

Amanda Troy 

AP Biology 

Mr. Ippolito 

10/6/19 

UT Southwestern Medical Center. “Implanted Memories Teach Birds a Song.” ScienceDaily,    

ScienceDaily, 3 Oct. 2019, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003141557.htm.

This article discusses a study involving song birds held at UT Southwestern which shows that memories can be implanted in the brain to teach vocalizations-without any lessons from the parent. Many of the aspects of vocal learning remains a mystery. Scientists have been wondering: how does the brain encode the memories needed to imitate our parents’ speech? And can scientists intervene when the process goes amiss? Dr. Todd Roberts, a neuroscientist with UT Southwestern’s O’Donnell Brain Institute stated, “This is the first time we have confirmed brain regions that encode behavioral-goal memories -- those memories that guide us when we want to imitate anything from speech to learning the piano," (UT Southwestern Medical Center, pg 1). The scientists activated a circuit of neurons through optogenetics, a new tool that uses light to monitor and control brain activity. The researchers used Zebra finches since they share many of the human stages of vocal development. Early in life, the birds hear their fathers sing, eventually memorizing the notes. They learn to replicate the behavior after practicing a countless number of times. The birds used the memories that the team encoded to learn syllabus of their song, with the duration of each note corresponding to the amount of time the light kept the neurons active. The findings break new ground on establishing how behavioral-goal memories are created and their special role in learning vocalizations. Dr. Roberts said, "It has been hard to study these kinds of memories in the lab because we haven't known where they're encoded," (UT Southwestern Medical Center, pg 2). These answers were found, however, in the testing connections between sensory motor areas of the brain. Researchers used Optogenetics to manipulate neuron activity in the NIf brain region and to control the information it sends to the HVC, the part of the brain implicated in learning from auditory experience. Besides documenting the NIf's role in forming syllable-specific memories, Dr. Roberts' team found that these memories were being stored elsewhere in the brain following their formation. Scientists showed this by cutting the communication between the NIf and HVC at different points of the learning process: Zebra finches that had already formed the memory could still perform the song, however,  those that were tutored after the neural communication was cut failed to copy the song. Dr. Roberts stated that his lab will observe other brain regions that hold different information to the HVC to hopefully gain a better understanding of how additional properties of behavioral-goal memories are created. 

This study is of much importance as it provides eye opening clues regarding where to look in the human brain to better comprehend autism and other conditions that affect language. Nevertheless, this recent discovery is extremely notable because it introduces new paths of research to find more brain circuits that influence other aspects of vocalization, including pitch and sound order. Dr. Roberts says that if we figure out the other pathways, we could hypothetically teach a bird to sing its song without any interactions from its father. However, Dr. Roberts notes that we're a long way from being able to do that. By mapping the neural processes involved as birds learn mating songs, scientists hope to someday use that knowledge to target particular speech genes that are disrupted in patients with autism or other neurodevelopmental conditions. 

A weakness of this article is the order of information. While the article had separate sections for each topic, the information in each section were a bit repetitive at times, mixing the more general information with the more complex. An improvement that can be made is to have the article to begin with broader information about the background of song birds’ processes of vocal learning and then continue to get more complex and detailed, without having to repeat the same general information again. A strength in this article is that it thoroughly described the complexity to the aspects of the research. It discussed the scientific background of processes of vocal learning in songbirds, a complex concept to understand. I also appreciated how the article connected this study to the positive impact it will have on our society, as this research will lead to more insight on neurological disorders.