Matthew Fuxjager is a researcher at Brown University and Eric Schuppe is a researcher at Wake Forest University A study published in the open access journal PLOS Biology shows that activity in the brain regions associated with tree drumming is related to vocalization.
Songbirds are studied because they have many similarities to humans. Both are learned when they are young and require complex muscle coordination. The forebrain of birds that do not learn their vocalizations has never been found with a marker gene in it.
The researchers found that woodpeckers have the same regions of the brain that make parvalbumin, even though they had not previously been examined. The birds' drumming and not their vocalizations caused the brain activity in these regions to go up.
When birds compete with each other, woodpecker drumming is used to defend territories and requires complex motor movements. Evidence from the brain suggests that drumming is a learned behavior. Finding a system that is both neurological and functionally similar to the song system can help us understand how brain systems evolve and become co-opted for new functions.
Woodpeckers have a set of specialized brain areas that control their ability to drum or quickly hammer their bill on trees. Songbirds have parts of their brain that help them learn to sing.
More information: Forebrain nuclei linked to woodpecker territorial drum displays mirror those that enable vocal learning in songbirds, PLoS Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001751 Journal information: PLoS Biology
All Rights Reserved © 2024
