Memory recall and guidance are essential for motor skill acquisition. Like humans learning to speak, male zebra finches learn to sing by first memorizing and then matching their vocalization to the tutor’s song (TS) during specific developmental periods. Yet, the neuroanatomical substrate supporting auditory-memory-guided sensorimotor learning has remained elusive. Here, using a whole-brain connectome analysis with activity-dependent viral expression, the authors identified a transient projection into the motor region, HVC, from neuronal ensembles responding to TS in the auditory forebrain, the caudomedial nidopallium (NCM),
in juveniles. Virally induced cell death of the juvenile, but not adult, TS-responsive NCM neurons impaired song learning. Moreover, isolation, which delays closure of the sensory, but not the motor, learning period, did not affect the decrease of projections into the HVC from the NCM TS-responsive neurons after the song learning period. Taken together, the results suggest that dynamic axonal pruning may regulate timely auditory-memory-guided vocal learning during development.
Matthew I M Louder, Masafumi Kuroda, Daisuke Taniguchi, Joanna Agnieszka Komorowska-Muller, Yuichi Morohashi, Megumu Takahashi, Miguel Sanchez-Valpuesta, Kazuhiro Wada, Yasushi Okada, Hiroyuki Hioki, Yoko Yazaki-Sugiyama (2024) Transient sensorimotor projections in the developmental song learning period., Cell reports, Volume 43, Number 5, pp. 114196
Published in 2024 May 7 (Electronic publication in May 7, 2024, midnight )
(Abstract) Memory recall and guidance are essential for motor skill acquisition. Like humans learning to speak, male zebra finches learn to sing by first memorizing and then matching their vocalization to the tutor's song (TS) during specific developmental periods. Yet, the neuroanatomical substrate supporting auditory-memory-guided sensorimotor learning has remained elusive. Here, using a whole-brain connectome analysis with activity-dependent viral expression, we identified a transient projection into the motor region, HVC, from neuronal ensembles responding to TS in the auditory forebrain, the caudomedial nidopallium (NCM), in juveniles. Virally induced cell death of the juvenile, but not adult, TS-responsive NCM neurons impaired song learning. Moreover, isolation, which delays closure of the sensory, but not the motor, learning period, did not affect the decrease of projections into the HVC from the NCM TS-responsive neurons after the song learning period. Taken together, our results suggest that dynamic axonal pruning may regulate timely auditory-memory-guided vocal learning during development.