Bioacoustic paper in SCIENCE

["Alfred A. Aburto Jr." <>]

This Week in SCIENCE, Volume 320, Issue 5876
dated May 2 2008, is now available at:

  http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol320/issue5876/twis.dtl


     From the Mouths of Baby Birds

Figure 1 [removed]The youthful noises of young zebra finches sound 
different from adult zebra finches, somewhat like babbling in human 
infants. Using surgical and pharmacological lesions, *Aronov /et al./* 
(p. 630 <http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/320/5876/630>) 
eliminate some of the brain regions and neural connections that support 
adult song. The lesions cause the adults to sound again like juveniles, 
but leave juvenile vocalizations intact. Thus, the brain connections 
upon which bird song depends differ between adults and juveniles, and 
the process of song maturation is not simply a refinement of an existing 
neural network, but involves switching from a youthful network to one 
required for adult song.