Meeting Abstract
The brain regions that control the learning and production in birdsong exhibit some of the larges sex differences in the brain known in vertebrates, and are associated with sex differences in singing behaviour. Song learning takes place through multiple stages: an early sensory phase when song models are memorized, followed by a sensorimotor phase in which auditory feedback is used to modify song output through subsong, plastic song, to adult crystalized song. However, how patterns of neural development in the caudal motor path and anterior forebrain path change through these learning stages, and differ between the sexes, is little explored. We collected brains from 76 young male and female zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata over 4 stages of song learning. Using neurogenesis markers for cell division (PCNA), neuron migration (doublecortin), and mature neurons (NeuN) we demonstrate that there are sex-specific changes in neurogenesis over song development that differ between the two pathways of the vocal control circuit. The emergence of neural sex differences in this system thus emerge gradually and with specific trajectories depending on the brain region and its function.
