Cortical rhythms are locked to auditory features of canary song

S. BOARI, G.B. MINDLIN, A. AMADOR

Conferencia; SAN 2021 XXXVI Annual (Virtual) Meeting; 2021

Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias

How vocal communication signals are represented in the cortex is a major challenge for behavioral neuroscience. Beyond a descriptive code, it is relevant to unveil the dynamical mechanism responsible for the neural representation of auditory stimuli. In this work, we report evidence of synchronous neural activity in cortical neurons of canaries (Serinus canaria), in response to auditory playback of the bird?s own song. The rhythmic features of canary song allowed us to show that this large-scale synchronization was locked to defined features of the behavior. We recorded neural activity in a brain region where sensorimotor integration occurs, showing the presence of well-defined oscillations in the local field potentials, which are locked to song rhythm. We also show a correspondence between local field potentials, multi-unit activity and single neuron activity within the same cortical region. Overall, our results show that the rhythmic features of the vocal behavior are represented in a cortical region of canaries.