Cooling HVC explained by a circular model of birdsong production

DIMA GERMÁN; MATÍAS GOLDIN; GABRIEL MINDLIN

Mar del Plata

Congreso; XXX Meeting of the Argentine Society for Research in Neuroscience (SAN); 2015

Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias

A mathematical model is studied to describe the variation of pressure patterns during song production in domestic canaries (Serinus canaria), as the telencephalic nucleus HVC is cooled. By working with average activity of different neural populations, in a frame of a circular model[1], we propose that motor gestures emerge from the combined activity of two different timescales. The input activity arriving at the nucleus in charge of the expiratory gestures are composed of (1) sparse activity at significant motor instances of an initiate nucleus, and (2) a synchronized, but delayed, activity in telencephalic center (HVC). We manipulate thermally this nucleus. Two main features observed in the experiments[2] (the stretching and breaking of certain types syllables) can be explained by our model.[1] Alonso R. G., Trevisan M. A., Amador A., Goller F. and Mindlin G. B. - A circular model for song motor control in Serinus canaria. Frontiers in Computational Neurocience 2015. Vol 9 ? 41.[2] Goldin, M. A. and Mindlin, G. B. - Evidence and control of bifurcations in a respiratory system. 2013. Chaos 23:043138.