Vocal Motor Performance in Birdsong Requires Brain-Body Interaction

Abstract

Significance statement Motor skill learning typically occurs in a period when the brain needs to navigate a body that is still growing and developing. How the changing body, neural circuit formation and motor coding influence each other remains unknown. Songbirds provide excellent model systems to study motor skill learning. It has recently been shown that songbird vocal muscles double in speed during sensorimotor learning. Here we argue that these contractile as well as morphological changes stem predominantly from use and only secondarily from hormones or genetic programs. This implies that muscle training constrains skill learning trajectories. As contractile muscle property changes must require altered motor codes for achieving the same acoustic targets, the final performance results from interactions between brain and body.