Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33296616›Full record

ArticleJournal of neurophysiology2021

Variable but not random: temporal pattern coding in a songbird brain area necessary for song modification.

S E Palmer, B D Wright, A J Doupe, M H Kao

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of neurophysiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
1.2field-weighted citation impact, top 23% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. 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 · 2025
    Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

S E PalmerDepartment of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, Department of Physics, Committee on Computational Neuroscience, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0001-6211-6293
B D WrightDepartment of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, Department of Physics, Committee on Computational Neuroscience, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
A J DoupeDepartment of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, Department of Physics, Committee on Computational Neuroscience, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
M H KaoDepartment of Biology & Program in Neuroscience, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts.ORCID 0000-0001-8884-9022
University of Chicago · USTufts University · US

Funding

NEURAL ANALYSIS OF VOCAL LEARNINGR01MH055987 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · PI BRAINARD, MICHAEL S · 1996 to 2015
$5.9M
Dopaminergic modulation of neural circuits and behaviorR01MH078824 · NIMH · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · PI DOUPE, ALLISON JANE · 2006 to 2010
$1.3M
Coarse-graining approaches to networks, learning, and behaviorR01EB026943 · NIBIB · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · PI BIALEK, WILLIAM, PALMER, STEPHANIE E · 2018 to 2020
$1.1M
HHS | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) MH55987HHS | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) MH78824NIBIB NIH HHS R01 EB026943NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH078824
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Practice of a complex motor gesture involves motor exploration to attain a better match to target, but little is known about the neural code for such exploration. We examine spiking in a premotor area of the songbird brain critical for song modification and quantify correlations between spiking and time in the motor sequence. While isolated spikes code for time in song during performance of song to a female bird, extended strings of spiking and silence, particularly bursts, code for time in song during undirected (solo) singing, or "practice." Bursts code for particular times in song with more information than individual spikes, and this spike-spike synergy is significantly higher during undirected singing. The observed pattern information cannot be accounted for by a Poisson model with a matched time-varying rate, indicating that the precise timing of spikes in both bursts in undirected singing and isolated spikes in directed singing code for song with a temporal code. Temporal coding during practice supports the hypothesis that lateral magnocellular nucleus of the anterior nidopallium neurons actively guide song modification at local instances in time.

Indexed as

Vocalization, AnimalAction PotentialsAnimalsBrainFinchesLearningMalebirdsonginformation theorymotor performancemotor practicetemporal coding

Identifiers

PMID33296616
PMCPMC7948135
OpenAlexW3112495916

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.