Baby #songbirds already have a surprisingly well-developed auditory processing system!

@HealeyLab and I are excited to share the first paper from my dissertation. #NestlingsAndNeurons
Paper here: https://doi.org/10.1002/dneu.22802

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Songbirds, like other altricial animals, are not fully developed at hatching. Hearing sensitivity is not fully mature until ~3 weeks of age, right around the time that the #sensitiveperiod for tutor song acquisition begins.
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Nevertheless, behavioral evidence suggests that embryos and nestlings can discriminate songs and learn call elements before hearing sensitivity matures. How is that accomplished in the #brain of a still-developing bird?
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I conducted extracellular recordings in the auditory forebrain region NCM (analogous to mammalian A2) of young #zebrafinches to assess neural properties and responses to species-specific songs before the sensitive period of song motor learning opens.
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Remarkably, all birds were highly responsive to songs. Nestlings even showed the same putative cell types and stimulus-specific adaptation that is characteristic of NCM in adults!
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Fidelity of temporal coding also showed the same pattern in response to different species’ songs across all ages, suggesting that species recognition is either innate or learned very early.
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This study provides the first evidence that electrophysiological properties of higher-order auditory neurons are already mature in nestling songbirds.
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Shout out to labbies @BioMatheus @jeremyspool @neuromafe @HannahB36834101 @Grey_Smatter @danp58711090 and twitterless #PodosLab for their guidance and input!

Thanks for reading!
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