PROPOSED CHAPTERS (with proposed senior authors)
1. Approaching birdsong from multiple levels of analysis - Jon T. Sakata and Sarah C. Woolley
This chapter will provide a broad overview of birdsong research from multiple levels of analysis. We will adopt Tinbergen's landmark framework to provide summaries of research into the mechanisms, development, evolutionary history, and adaptive significance of birdsong (e.g., the importance of song performance to reproductive success). This introductory chapter will highlight key concepts to be discussed in greater depth in subsequent chapters and will emphasize the complementarity of birdsong research to broader research on vocal communication in vertebrates.
2. History of birdsong research - Jonathan Prather and Donald Kroodsma
This chapter will present a historical overview of the field of birdsong. The authors will review the works of researchers who paved the way for the modern era of birdsong (e.g., Thorpe, Marler, Nottebohm, Konishi), highlight the importance of the comparative approach, outline central questions in birdsong, and discuss novel methodologies to answer classic questions.
375
3. Bridging birdsong and speech - Jon T. Sakata and Patricia Kuhl
Songbirds are one of the few vertebrate species that, like humans, are not born with their vocal communication signals but must learn the structure of their species-typical vocalizations during development. Further, the process of song learning in songbird^1200 times). The chapter will discuss such diverse topics such as critical periods, sensory refinement across development, social reinforcement and contingency, learning in a social context, sensorimotor learning, reinforcement models for sensory and sensorimotor learning, species constraints on song learning, and entrainment.
4. Neural mechanisms of vocal learning - Mimi Kao and Michael S. Brainard
This chapter will provide a comprehensive review of the neural mechanisms underlying vocal learning, theoretical models of vocal learning, and empirical tests of these models. The authors will provide detailed descriptions of the contributions of neurons in the canonical 'song system' and auditory processing circuits to vocal learning and plasticity. In addition, this chapter will review recent advances into our understanding of how neuromodulatory inputs into song and auditory circuits (e.g., from the ventral tegmental area, locus coeruleus, and nucleus basalis) shape the process of vocal learning. This chapter will also review shared and distinct mechanisms underlying sensory vs. sensorimotor learning as well as recent advances into the contribution of brain areas outside the canonical song system to song learning.
5. Neural mechanisms of song control - Michael Long and Tim Gardner
This chapter will review the exciting new advances in our understanding of how neurons in the song system control song production. The chapter will provide an overview of theoretical models of song control and empirical support for such models and will discuss sensorimotor integration, efference copy, and feedback signals. The authors will also summarize recent technological advances to probe neural function, including optogenetics, miniaturized Peltier devices, and micro-imaging techniques.
6. Songbirds as models to understanding basal ganglia function - Arthur Leblois and David Perkel
Area X is a basal ganglia structure that is critical for song learning and control and that resembles basal ganglia structures in mammals. This chapter will review the microcircuitry within Area X, the homologies between Area X and mammalian basal ganglia circuits, and the function of Area X
About the Author: Dr. Jon T. Sakata is an Associate Professor at McGill University in Montreal, CanadaDr. Sarah C. Woolley is an Associate Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada Dr. Richard R. Fay is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at Loyola, Chicago
Dr. Arthur N. Popper is Professor Emeritus and research professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park
