Symposium number: 46

Title: BRAINS AND BIRDSONG

Principal organizer: Erich Jarvis
Duke University Medical Center, Department of Neurobiology, Box 3209, Durham, North Carolina, 27710, USA
email: jarvis@neuro.duke.edu

Second organizer: Constance Scharff
Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestrasse 73, 14195 Berlin, Germany

First Keynote speaker: Constance Scharff
Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Ihnestrasse 73, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Title of first keynote paper: A role for the speech gene FoxP2 in songbirds

Second Keynote speaker: Kazuo Okanoya
RIKEN Brain Sciences Institute, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako-Shi, Saitama 351-0198, Japan
Title of second keynote paper: Neural, behavioral, and functional correlates of multi-branch song syntax in Bengalese Finches

Contributed talks

Symposium description: In this symposium the speakers will present the latest and exciting findings on the neurobiology of birdsong. Dr. Scharff and colleagues have shown that the FoxP2 gene, a transcription factor required for normal language production in humans, is present in the songbird brain and is upregulated in the vocal learning nucleus of the striatum when learning of new songs occur. Thus, it appears that changes in the FoxP2 gene evolved for use in vocal learning in both birds and humans. Dr. Okanoya and colleagues have found that mates select for varied, aka sexy, song syntax in both wild and domesticated population of songbirds. Their findings suggest that evolution of vocal learning may have been selected for by conspecifics choosing for varied, sexy syntax of mates. The findings of these two speakers emphasize how vocal learning may have been selected on both genetic and epigenetic levels. The remaining speakers of the symposium will be selected on any topic that is exciting about brains and birdsong.

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