Assessing Visual Requirements For Social-context Dependent Activation Of The Songbird Song System

This study shows that social context-dependent activation in the brain does not depend on simple sensory processes, such a vision, as one might expect.


Instead, we believe that higher order associative processing occurs, where an individual animal may need to know through at least one sensory modality that another individual is present or that the sensory processing is highly indirect.


This was shown in zebra finch males that sang to females, with one eye covered.


In the brain hemisphere where visual information was block, visual and motivation brain areas were affected but the dramatic differences in social context regulation of the song system that controls singing was not.


Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences


Proceedings B is the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.


Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences