Acute injections of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in a vocal premotor nucleus reversibly disrupt adult birdsong stability and trigger syllable deletion
| Autor: | Richard Mooney, J. Matthew Kittelberger |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2004 |
| Předmět: |
Telencephalon
animal structures Time Factors Tropomyosin receptor kinase B Drug Administration Schedule Synapse Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience Neurotrophic factors Neuroplasticity Animals Zebra finch Injections Intraventricular Brain-derived neurotrophic factor Neuronal Plasticity biology General Neuroscience Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor nervous system behavior and behavior mechanisms biology.protein Female Finches Vocalization Animal Motor learning Neuroscience psychological phenomena and processes Neurotrophin |
| Zdroj: | Journal of neurobiology. 62(4) |
| ISSN: | 0022-3034 |
| Popis: | Behavioral variability serves an essential role in motor learning by enabling sensory feedback to select those motor patterns that minimize error. Birds use auditory feedback to learn how to sing, and their songs lose variability and become highly stereotyped, or crystallized, at the end of a sensitive period for sensorimotor learning. The molecular cues that regulate song variability are not well understood. In other systems, neurotrophins, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in particular, can mediate various forms of neural plasticity, including sensitive period neural circuit plasticity and activity-dependent synapse formation, and may also influence learning and memory. Here, we have tested the hypothesis that neurotrophin expression in the robust nucleus of the arcopallium (RA), the telencephalic output controlling song, regulates song variability. BDNF and its receptor trkB are expressed in RA, and BDNF expression in RA appears to be highest in juveniles, when song is most variable and plastic, and synapse density highest. Thus, song variability and synaptic connectivity could be enhanced by augmented expression of BDNF in RA. In support of this idea, we found that BDNF injections into the adult RA induced the re-expression of juvenile-like phenotypes, including song variability and an increased synaptic density in RA. Furthermore, BDNF treatment also induced vocal plasticity, characterized by syllable deletions and persistent changes to the song patterns. These results suggest that endogenous BDNF could be a molecular regulator of the song variability essential to vocal plasticity and, ultimately, to song learning. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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