The duet songbirds will "mind control" their partners and stay in sync

Pheugopedius euophrys

A new study published May 31 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that male and female pale-tailed reed wrens (pheugopedius euophrys) suppress the vocal areas in their partners' brains when they sing duet, allowing them to synchronize their singing with their own. The researchers said that in the wren's opera-like duet, the auditory feedback exchanged between the male and female temporarily inhibited the listener's singing motor circuits, which helped connect the wren's brains and coordinate performances similar to "telepathy".

"You can say timing is everything." Eric Fortune, a neurobiologist in the Department of Biological Sciences at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, co-author of the paper, said, "These wrens tell us that for a good collaboration, partners need to be 'one' through sensory connections." "

Melissa Coleman, corresponding author of the paper and an associate professor of biology at Scripps College, added: "Imagine these birds as jazz singers. The duet wrens will have a rough song structure before singing, but as the song progresses, they must adjust quickly by constantly receiving information from each other. We thought there would be a set of highly active specialized neurons to regulate the singing, but in fact, each other's vocals would inhibit this group of neurons – which is also the key to regulating the rhythm of the duet. "

The study was conducted in a remote bamboo forest on the active volcano of Antisana, Ecuador. The researchers recorded neurophysiological data from four pairs of wrens when they sang solo and duet and analyzed sensorimotor activity in the premotor region of their brains (an area associated with learning and composing music).

Records show that during duet rounds (usually tight syllables that sound like only one bird is singing), individual neurons activate rapidly as they pronounce syllables themselves. However, when an individual hears a partner's chirping in a duet, the activity of neurons decreases significantly. Fortune explains: "You can think of the inhibition effect as a trampoline. When the wren hears the chirping of its partner, the neurons are suppressed. But like a trampoline bounce, this inhibition release allows them to react quickly as they sing on their own. "

Fortune and Coleman say the results provide a new perspective on how humans and other cooperative animals use sensory cues to act in tandem. Fortune said: "These mechanisms are the same or similar to what is happening in the human brain, and we have similar brain circuits when it comes to learning and coordinating vocalizations." Coleman added: "Today, when we have poor network connectivity during zoom, webex, and facetime meetings, repressive emotions can appear out of time, affecting the sensory information we rely on to coordinate conversation times." I think this research is important for understanding the way humans interact with the world when they work together to accomplish the same behavior. We are eager to cooperate, just like these wrens. "

Compiler: Filament Reviewer: Seamus Editor-in-Charge: Chen Zhihan

Journal Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Issue no. 0027-8424

Original link: https://phys.org/news/2021-05-duetting-songbirds-mute-musical-mind.html

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