title: Remodeling of Dendritic Spines in the Avian Vocal Motor Cortex Following Deafening Depends on the Basal Ganglia Circuit.
abstract: Deafening elicits a deterioration of learned vocalization, in both humans and songbirds. In songbirds, learned vocal plasticity has been shown to depend on the basal ganglia-cortical circuit, but the underlying cellular basis remains to be clarified. Using confocal imaging and electron microscopy, we examined the effect of deafening on dendritic spines in avian vocal motor cortex, the robust nucleus of the arcopallium (RA), and investigated the role of the basal ganglia circuit in motor cortex plasticity. We found rapid structural changes to RA dendritic spines in response to hearing loss, accompanied by learned song degradation. In particular, the morphological characters of RA spine synaptic contacts between 2 major pathways were altered differently. However, experimental disruption of the basal ganglia circuit, through lesions in song-specialized basal ganglia nucleus Area X, largely prevented both the observed changes to RA dendritic spines and the song deterioration after hearing loss. Our results provide cellular evidence to highlight a key role of the basal ganglia circuit in the motor cortical plasticity that underlies learned vocal plasticity.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Gene Resource and Molecular Development, Laboratory of Neuroscience and Brain Development, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Gene Resource and Molecular Development, Laboratory of Neuroscience and Brain Development, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Hainan Normal University, Haikou 571158, China.
authors.forename: Chun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Gene Resource and Molecular Development, Laboratory of Neuroscience and Brain Development, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Xiaojuan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Gene Resource and Molecular Development, Laboratory of Neuroscience and Brain Development, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Center for Biological Imaging (CBI), Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Hainan Normal University, Haikou 571158, China.
authors.forename: Xinwen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Gene Resource and Molecular Development, Laboratory of Neuroscience and Brain Development, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Mingxue
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zuo
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Gene Resource and Molecular Development, Laboratory of Neuroscience and Brain Development, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Xiaolong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
authors.forename: Dapeng
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory of Gene Resource and Molecular Development, Laboratory of Neuroscience and Brain Development, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
authors.forename: Yingyu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001306:Auditory Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001479:Basal Ganglia / Q000502:physiology*; D001710:Biotin / Q000031:analogs & derivatives; D003638:Deafness / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D049229:Dendritic Spines / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D003911:Dextrans; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004572:Electrolysis / Q000009:adverse effects; D046369:Finches; D053400:High Vocal Center / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000473:pathology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D013569:Synapses / Q000473:pathology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D014828:Vocalization, Animal
chemical_list: D003911:Dextrans; C076397:biotinylated dextran amine; D001710:Biotin
keywords: basal ganglia; dendritic spine; songbird; vocal motor cortex; vocal plasticity