Reveal secret of imitators parrots – Terra Mexico

A neural covered in the brains of parrots is responsible for the unparalleled ability of birds to imitate sounds and human speech, a study presented in the journal PlosOne.

The function of these brain structures had not been recognized in these animals and finding provides new information about the neural mechanisms of human speech.

“This work opens up a huge avenue of research to try to understand how parrots process information necessary to copy new sounds and the mechanisms background in his imitations of human speech are,” said Mukta Chakraborty, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

This is the first project progress 10K Bird, who sequenced 10 000 species of birds in five years.

The parrots are among the few known animals capable of vocal learning, which means that they can imitate sounds, so scientists have long tried to know why other birds can not.

Regardless of the size of the regions of the brain, the team reviewed Chakraborty gene expression parrots and found to have a network of different structures to songbirds and hummingbirds.

He also neuroscientist at Duke University suggests that, in addition, the parrots have a defined region of the brain that controls the vocal learning, called shell or outer ring region also related to learning.

In fact, the shell-shaped structures are relatively more important in parrot species that are well known for their ability to mimic human speech, the study found.

So far, common parakeet was the only parrot species whose brain had been probed by the mechanisms of vocal learning.

The new work reviewed the brains of the eight species of parrots, parakeet addition, including parrots, cockatoos, lovebirds two Amazonian species, a blue and gold macaw, one kea and an African gray parrot.

In all, the researchers looked for genetic markers related to learning specializing in brain of humans and songbirds activity.

Even the oldest parrot species they studied, the Kea New Zealand, has a cover structure (though rudimentary) suggesting that populations of neurons in the shells probably arose for at least 29 million years.

Until now, scientists had assumed that the regions surrounding the nuclei did not have to do with vocal learning, which were seen as something separate.

The results support the hypothesis that learning songs in humans and other animals, like the ability to imitate arose by duplication of neural networks, but how does a copy and paste job he? It is still unknown.

While in most regions of the brain of vocal learning in birds are related to the control of movement, the same region where the parrots show some patterns, inclusive, may explain why some parrots mechanisms They are also able to learn to dance with the music.

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