title: Own song selectivity in the songbird auditory pathway: suppression by norepinephrine.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Like human speech, birdsong is a learned behavior that supports species and individual recognition. Norepinephrine is a catecholamine suspected to play a role in song learning. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of norepinephrine in bird's own song selectivity, a property thought to be important for auditory feedback processes required for song learning and maintenance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that injection of DSP-4, a specific noradrenergic toxin, unmasks own song selectivity in the dorsal part of NCM, a secondary auditory region.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The level of norepinephrine throughout the telencephalon is known to be high in alert birds and low in sleeping birds. Our results suggest that norepinephrine activity can be further decreased, giving rise to a strong own song selective signal in dorsal NCM. This latent own song selective signal, which is only revealed under conditions of very low noradrenergic activity, might play a role in the auditory feedback and/or the integration of this feedback with the motor circuitry for vocal learning and maintenance.
authors.affiliation: Bio-Imaging Lab, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium. colline.poirier@ua.ac.be
authors.forename: Colline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Poirier
authors.forename: Tiny
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Boumans
authors.forename: Michiel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vellema
authors.forename: Geert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: De Groof
authors.forename: Thierry D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Charlier
authors.forename: Marleen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Verhoye
authors.forename: Annemie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Van der Linden
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Balthazart
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000187:drug effects*; D009638:Norepinephrine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D020308:Songbirds / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D009638:Norepinephrine