ArticlePloS one2008
Superfast vocal muscles control song production in songbirds.
Article in PloS one, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 papers.
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Who cites it
65 citing papers in PubMed.
- Utterance evolution: the road to generative, combinatorial communicators.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- High-frequency vocalizations and hearing in hummingbirds: what we know and opportunities for the future.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Review
- A modelling perspective on torque-frequency trade-offs in multifunctional lever systems driven by antagonist muscle pairs.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Courtship vocalizations in male ducks: spectral composition and resonance of the syringeal bulla.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- JiSuJi, a virtual muscle for small animal simulations, accurately predicts force from naturalistic spike trains.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Transitions and tricks: nonlinear phenomena in the avian voice.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Nonlinear vocal phenomena in African penguin begging calls: occurrence, significance and potential applications.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Vocal registers expand signal diversity in vertebrate vocal communication.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Respiratory contributions to birdsong-evolutionary considerations and open questions.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- A synchrotron X-ray CT-based 3D atlas of the songbird syrinx with single muscle fibre resolution implies fine motor control of syringeal vocal folds.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Evolution of the syrinx of Apodiformes, including the vocal-learning Trochilidae (Aves: Strisores).Zoological journal of the Linnean Society · 2024Article
- Male and female syringeal muscles exhibit superfast shortening velocities in zebra finches.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Does the syrinx, a peripheral structure, constrain effects of sex steroids on behavioral sex reversal in adult canaries?Hormones and behavior · 2023Article
- Article
- Resurgent NaNature communications · 2021Article
- One-to-one innervation of vocal muscles allows precise control of birdsong.Current biology : CB · 2021Article
- Different frequency control mechanisms and the exploitation of frequency space in passerines.Ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Fatigue resistant jaw muscles facilitate long-lasting courtship behaviour in the southern alligator lizard (Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Increasing Muscle Speed Drives Changes in the Neuromuscular Transform of Motor Commands during Postnatal Development in Songbirds.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2020Article
- Mechanical Characteristics of Ultrafast Zebrafish Larval Swimming Muscles.Biophysical journal · 2020Article
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Birdsong is a widely used model for vocal learning and human speech, which exhibits high temporal and acoustic diversity. Rapid acoustic modulations are thought to arise from the vocal organ, the syrinx, by passive interactions between the two independent sound generators or intrinsic nonlinear dynamics of sound generating structures. Additionally, direct neuromuscular control could produce such rapid and precisely timed acoustic features if syringeal muscles exhibit rare superfast muscle contractile kinetics. However, no direct evidence exists that avian vocal muscles can produce modulations at such high rates. Here, we show that 1) syringeal muscles are active in phase with sound modulations during song over 200 Hz, 2) direct stimulation of the muscles in situ produces sound modulations at the frequency observed during singing, and that 3) syringeal muscles produce mechanical work at the required frequencies and up to 250 Hz in vitro. The twitch kinematics of these so-called superfast muscles are the fastest measured in any vertebrate muscle. Superfast vocal muscles enable birds to directly control the generation of many observed rapid acoustic changes and to actuate the millisecond precision of neural activity into precise temporal vocal control. Furthermore, birds now join the list of vertebrate classes in which superfast muscle kinetics evolved independently for acoustic communication.
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