Brain and Language: Insights

from Songbirds

Colline Poirier

Vocal learning

• Sensory: hearing the model (sensitive period)

• Sensory-motor: practicing + auditory feedback

• Maintenance: auditory feedback

Proto-syntax

Starling song

A: individual whistlesB, C, D : individual warbling motifs E, F, G: click trains superimposed to individual warbling motifsH, I : speci-specific high-pitched trills

Spoken language• Sequence of acoustically complex sounds

• Learned behaviour

• Meaningful order of sounds

• Referential function

OK

OK

Birdsong

No

OK

Gene expressionAnatomical connectivityFunctionality

Jarvis et al 2005, Nat Rev Neurosci

Avian Brain

Song control system

Songbird & MRI

Own song recognition

Own song selectivity inthe song control system

Own song selectivity inthe auditory pathway?

Birdsong: support of species and individual recognition

Own song selectivity: Experience-dependent mechanisms & Auditory feedback

Poirier et al., 2009, J. Neurosci

Own song recognition

Own song recognition

Lateralized own song selectivity towards the right side:

Reminiscent of:

song production neural auditory feedback control own voiceown cry

own face

Own song recognition

Own song selectivity at the midbrain level

Information processing about the identity of a subject through experience-dependent mechanisms, challenging the classical perception of sub-cortical regions as primitive and non-plastic structures.

Brain and Language

vocal learningLanguage precursors