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Mapping Neural Architectures Onto Acoustic Features of Birdsong

¹Department of Physics, ²Marine Physical Laboratory (Scripps Institution of Oceanography), and ³Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0402; and ⁴Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad Universitaria, Pabellon I (1428), Buenos Aires, Argentina

Submitted 1 December 2003; accepted in final form 7 March 2004

The motor pathway responsible for the complex vocalizations of songbirds has been extensively characterized, both in terms of intrinsic and synaptic physiology in vitro and in terms of the spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity in vivo. However, the relationship between the neural architecture of the song motor pathway and the acoustic features of birdsong is not well understood. Using a computational model of the song motor pathway and the songbird vocal organ, we investigate the relationship between song production and the neural connectivity of nucleus HVc (used as a proper name) and the robust nucleus of the archistriatum (RA). Drawing on recent experimental observations, our neural model contains a population of sequentially bursting HVc neurons driving the activity of a population of RA neurons. An important focus of our investigations is the contribution of intrinsic circuitry within RA to the acoustic output of the model. We find that the inclusion of inhibitory interneurons in the model can substantially influence the features of song syllables, and we illustrate the potential for subharmonic behavior in RA in response to forcing by HVc neurons. Our results demonstrate the association of specific acoustic features with specific neural connectivities and support the view that intrinsic circuitry within RA may play a critical role in generating the features of birdsong.

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