Synchronized HVC activity in auditory perception in canaries

GABRIEL B. MINDLIN; SANTIAGO BOARI; ANA AMADOR

Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires

Conferencia; XXXII Congreso anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2017

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Songbirds have been the focus of neuroethological research of the principles underlying vocal production, perception and learning. A birdsong?s brain presents specialized neural nuclei dedicated to these tasks (the ?song system?). Telencephalic nucleus HVC is sensorimotor: it is required for song production and its neurons present a highly selective response to auditory presentations of the bird?s own song (BOS). Previous works showed that in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), the elicited auditory response presents a similar firing pattern to the one measured while the bird is singing, suggesting a shared coding mechanism for the motor production and sensory perception of song. With the advent of multielectrode arrays, it is possible to obtain high-quality neural data across many recording sites simultaneously. In this work, we studied HVC activity using a 32-channel silicon probe by measuring the auditory response to BOS in head-fixed, urethane-anaesthetized canaries (Serinus canaria). Spike sorting allowed us to isolate many single units from each protocol and we found that population firing patterns tend to be highly correlated, even among cerebral hemispheres. Since auditory responses to BOS could be used as a proxy for neural activity during singing, these results may also inform the neural code for song production. Finally, we studied the relation between local field potentials (LFPs) peaks and bursts of activity of single units at HVC.