Journal
NEUROIMAGE
Volume 25, Issue 4, Pages 1242-1255Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.12.058
Keywords
imaging; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response; auditory; cognitive; songbird; starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
Funding
- NINDS NIH HHS [NS 35467] Funding Source: Medline
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Auditory fMRI in humans has recently received increasing attention from cognitive neuroscientists as a tool to understand mental processing of learned acoustic sequences and analyzing speech recognition and development of musical skills. The present study introduces this tool in a well-documented animal model for vocal learning, the songbird, and provides fundamental insight in the main technical issues associated with auditory fMRI in these songbirds. Stimulation protocols with various listening tasks lead to appropriate activation of successive relays in the songbirds' auditory pathway. The elicited BOLD response is also region and stimulus specific, and its temporal aspects provide accurate measures of the changes in brain physiology induced by the acoustic stimuli. Extensive repetition of an identical stimulus does not lead to habituation of the response in the primary or secondary telencephalic auditory regions of anesthetized subjects. The BOLD signal intensity changes during a stimulation and subsequent rest period have a very specific time course which shows a remarkable resemblance to auditory evoked BOLD responses commonly observed in human subjects. This observation indicates that auditory fMRI in the songbird may establish a link between auditory related neuro-imaging studies done in humans and the large body of neuro-ethological research on song learning and neuro-plasticity performed in songbirds. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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