This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: Research was supported by a National Institutes of Health pioneer award DP1 OD000448 and HHMI investigator award to EDJ and an National Science Foundation predoctoral fellowship to GA. Received: Accepted: SeptemPublished: October 10, 2012Ĭopyright: © Arriaga et al. Northwestern University, United States of America To explain our findings, we propose a continuum hypothesis of vocal learning.Ĭitation: Arriaga G, Zhou EP, Jarvis ED (2012) Of Mice, Birds, and Men: The Mouse Ultrasonic Song System Has Some Features Similar to Humans and Song-Learning Birds. We conclude that male mice have some limited vocal modification abilities with at least some neuroanatomical features thought to be unique to humans and song-learning birds. We also discovered that male mice depend on auditory feedback to maintain some ultrasonic song features, and that sub-strains with differences in their songs can match each other's pitch when cross-housed under competitive social conditions. Here we investigated the mouse song system and discovered that it includes a motor cortex region active during singing, that projects directly to brainstem vocal motor neurons and is necessary for keeping song more stereotyped and on pitch. However, it is assumed that mice lack a forebrain system for vocal modification and that their ultrasonic vocalizations are innate. Male mice produce courtship ultrasonic vocalizations with acoustic features similar to songs of song-learning birds. These features have so far not been found in closely related primate and avian species that do not learn vocalizations. The characteristic features of this social communication behavior include vocal control by forebrain motor areas, a direct cortical projection to brainstem vocal motor neurons, and dependence on auditory feedback to develop and maintain learned vocalizations. Humans and song-learning birds communicate acoustically using learned vocalizations.
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