ArticleNeuron2013
The basal ganglia is necessary for learning spectral, but not temporal, features of birdsong.
Article in Neuron, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers.
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Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed.
- Real-Time Segmentation and Classification of Birdsong Syllables for Learning Experiments.eNeuro · 2026Article
- Article
- Estimating the motor exploration in reinforcement learning.iScience · 2026Article
- Sharp Waves, Bursts, and Coherence: Activity in a Songbird Vocal Circuit Is Influenced by Behavioral State.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Change of Spiny Neuron Structure in the Basal Ganglia Song Circuit and Its Regulation by miR-9 during Song Development.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Context-dependent modulations in zebra finch distance calls revealed by a novel goal-directed vocalization paradigm.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Social context affects sequence modification learning in birdsong.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Resilience of A Learned Motor Behavior After Chronic Disruption of Inhibitory Circuits.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Goal-directed vocal planning in a songbird.eLife · 2024Article
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- Dopamine neurons evaluate natural fluctuations in performance quality.Cell reports · 2022Article
- Performance-Dependent Consolidation of Learned Vocal Changes in Adult Songbirds.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2022Article
- A Microclip Peripheral Nerve Interface (μcPNI) for Bioelectronic Interfacing with Small Nerves.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2022Article
- Motor constellation theory: A model of infants' phonological development.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Intrinsic motivation for singing in songbirds is enhanced by temporary singing suppression and regulated by dopamine.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- The basal ganglia control the detailed kinematics of learned motor skills.Nature neuroscience · 2021Article
- Plasticity of stereotyped birdsong driven by chronic manipulation of cortical-basal ganglia activity.Current biology : CB · 2021Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Executing a motor skill requires the brain to control which muscles to activate at what times. How these aspects of control-motor implementation and timing-are acquired, and whether the learning processes underlying them differ, is not well understood. To address this, we used a reinforcement learning paradigm to independently manipulate both spectral and temporal features of birdsong, a complex learned motor sequence, while recording and perturbing activity in underlying circuits. Our results uncovered a striking dissociation in how neural circuits underlie learning in the two domains. The basal ganglia was required for modifying spectral, but not temporal, structure. This functional dissociation extended to the descending motor pathway, where recordings from a premotor cortex analog nucleus reflected changes to temporal, but not spectral, structure. Our results reveal a strategy in which the nervous system employs different and largely independent circuits to learn distinct aspects of a motor skill.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.