ArticlePloS one2015
Core and Shell Song Systems Unique to the Parrot Brain.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 84 citations in OpenAlex.
- Can AI help with the hardest thing: pro health behavior change.NPJ cardiovascular health · 2026Review
- What imitating an iconic robot reveals on allospecific vocal imitation in parrots and starlings.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Third-party imitation is not restricted to humans.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Comparative approaches to the neurobiology of avian vocal learning.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2025Review
- Article
- Automatic imitation of intransitive actions in macaws.iScience · 2024Article
- Beat-based dancing to music has evolutionary foundations in advanced vocal learning.BMC neuroscience · 2024Review
- Vocal convergence and social proximity shape the calls of the most basal Passeriformes, New Zealand Wrens.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Anterior forebrain pathway in parrots is necessary for producing learned vocalizations with individual signatures.Current biology : CB · 2023Article
- Recent developments in parrot cognition: a quadrennial update.Animal cognition · 2023Review
- A survey of vocal mimicry in companion parrots.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Forebrain nuclei linked to woodpecker territorial drum displays mirror those that enable vocal learning in songbirds.PLoS biology · 2022Article
- A dual larynx motor networks hypothesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Positive selection in noncoding genomic regions of vocal learning birds is associated with genes implicated in vocal learning and speech functions in humans.Genome research · 2021Article
- Re-evaluating vocal production learning in non-oscine birds.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- Vocal learning as a preadaptation for the evolution of human beat perception and synchronization.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Defining the multidimensional phenotype: New opportunities to integrate the behavioral ecology and behavioral neuroscience of vocal learning.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Review
- Convergent evolution of complex cognition: Insights from the field of avian cognition into the study of self-awareness.Learning & behavior · 2021Review
- Memory-specific correlated neuronal activity in higher-order auditory regions of a parrot.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The ability to imitate complex sounds is rare, and among birds has been found only in parrots, songbirds, and hummingbirds. Parrots exhibit the most advanced vocal mimicry among non-human animals. A few studies have noted differences in connectivity, brain position and shape in the vocal learning systems of parrots relative to songbirds and hummingbirds. However, only one parrot species, the budgerigar, has been examined and no differences in the presence of song system structures were found with other avian vocal learners. Motivated by questions of whether there are important differences in the vocal systems of parrots relative to other vocal learners, we used specialized constitutive gene expression, singing-driven gene expression, and neural connectivity tracing experiments to further characterize the song system of budgerigars and/or other parrots. We found that the parrot brain uniquely contains a song system within a song system. The parrot "core" song system is similar to the song systems of songbirds and hummingbirds, whereas the "shell" song system is unique to parrots. The core with only rudimentary shell regions were found in the New Zealand kea, representing one of the only living species at a basal divergence with all other parrots, implying that parrots evolved vocal learning systems at least 29 million years ago. Relative size differences in the core and shell regions occur among species, which we suggest could be related to species differences in vocal and cognitive abilities.
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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.