ArticleThe Journal of comparative neurology2015
Convergent differential regulation of SLIT-ROBO axon guidance genes in the brains of vocal learners.
Article in The Journal of comparative neurology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 82 citations in OpenAlex.
- The genomics of the domestication syndrome in a songbird model species.Communications biology · 2025Article
- A versatile pipeline to identify convergently lost ancestral conserved fragments associated with convergent evolution of vocal learning.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2024Article
- Vocal learning-associated convergent evolution in mammalian proteins and regulatory elements.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2024Article
- Does a Vertebrate Morphotype of Pallial Subdivisions Really Exist?Brain, behavior and evolution · 2024Review
- Cell type specializations of the vocal-motor cortex in songbirds.Cell reports · 2023Article
- The pale spear-nosed bat: A neuromolecular and transgenic model for vocal learning.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2022Article
- Forebrain nuclei linked to woodpecker territorial drum displays mirror those that enable vocal learning in songbirds.PLoS biology · 2022Article
- Article
- A Brain Region-Specific Expression Profile for Genes Within Large Introgression Deserts and Under Positive Selection inFrontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
- Animal models of developmental dyslexia.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Review
- Avian models for brain mechanisms underlying altered social behavior in autism.Frontiers in physiology · 2022Review
- Dynamic transcriptome landscape in the song nucleus HVC between juvenile and adult zebra finches.Advanced genetics (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2021Article
- Estrogen and sex-dependent loss of the vocal learning system in female zebra finches.Hormones and behavior · 2021Article
- Specificity in sociogenomics: Identifying causal relationships between genes and behavior.Hormones and behavior · 2021Review
- Genetic Mechanisms Underlying the Evolution of Connectivity in the Human Cortex.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2021Review
- Molecular specializations of deep cortical layer analogs in songbirds.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Brain activity underlying American crow processing of encounters with dead conspecifics.Behavioural brain research · 2020Article
- Birdsong as a window into language origins and evolutionary neuroscience.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Dosage analysis of the 7q11.23 Williams region identifiesScience advances · 2019Article
- Molecular architecture of the zebra finch arcopallium.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Only a few distantly related mammals and birds have the trait of complex vocal learning, which is the ability to imitate novel sounds. This ability is critical for speech acquisition and production in humans, and is attributed to specialized forebrain vocal control circuits that have several unique connections relative to adjacent brain circuits. As a result, it has been hypothesized that there could exist convergent changes in genes involved in neural connectivity of vocal learning circuits. In support of this hypothesis, expanding on our related study (Pfenning et al. [2014] Science 346: 1256846), here we show that the forebrain part of this circuit that makes a relatively rare direct connection to brainstem vocal motor neurons in independent lineages of vocal learning birds (songbird, parrot, and hummingbird) has specialized regulation of axon guidance genes from the SLIT-ROBO molecular pathway. The SLIT1 ligand was differentially downregulated in the motor song output nucleus that makes the direct projection, whereas its receptor ROBO1 was developmentally upregulated during critical periods for vocal learning. Vocal nonlearning bird species and male mice, which have much more limited vocal plasticity and associated circuits, did not show comparable specialized regulation of SLIT-ROBO genes in their nonvocal motor cortical regions. These findings are consistent with SLIT and ROBO gene dysfunctions associated with autism, dyslexia, and speech sound language disorders and suggest that convergent evolution of vocal learning was associated with convergent changes in the SLIT-ROBO axon guidance pathway.
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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.