Behavioral Measurements of a Temporally Precise Motor Code for Birdsong Export

@article{Glaze_2007_behavioral, abstract = {There are conflicting data on the timescale for the representation of adult zebra finch song. Acoustic structure and perturbation studies suggest that song is divided into discrete vocal elements, or syllables, lasting 50200 ms. However, recordings in premotor telencephalic nucleus HVC (used as proper name) and RA (robust nucleus of arcopallium) suggest that song is represented by sparse, fine-grained bursting on the 510 ms timescale. We previously found patterns of timing variability that distinguish individual syllables and repeat across multiple 500- to 1000-ms-long motifs (Glaze and Troyer, 2006). Here, we extend our methods to analyze whether this is attributable to a syllable-based code or representations on a finer timescale. We find evidence for the latter. First, identity-dependent timing is dominated by independent variability in notes, finer song segments that compose a syllable; for example, the length of a note is no more correlated with other notes in the same syllable than it is with notes in other syllables. For a subset of notes, clear modulation in spectral structure allowed for accurate timing measurements on the 510 ms timescale. Temporal independence holds at this scale as well: the length of an individual 510 ms song slice is correlated with the same slice repeated 5001000 ms later, yet is independent of neighboring slices. We propose that such fine-grained, persistent changes in song tempo result from an interaction between slow modulatory factors and precisely timed, sparse bursting in HVC and RA. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1065-07.2007}, author = {Glaze, Christopher M. and Troyer, Todd W.}, citeulike-article-id = {1530050}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1065-07.2007}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/29/7631}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17634357}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=17634357}, citeulike-linkout-4 = {http://dx.doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1065-07.2007}, citeulike-linkout-5 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1065-07.2007}, day = {18}, doi = {10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1065-07.2007}, journal = {Journal of Neuroscience}, keywords = {birdsong, coding, information, motor}, month = {July}, number = {29}, pages = {7631--7639}, pdf = {glaze\_07\_behavioral.pdf}, posted-at = {2007-08-02 10:16:06}, priority = {2}, title = {Behavioral Measurements of a Temporally Precise Motor Code for Birdsong}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1065-07.2007}, volume = {27}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - Glaze_2007_behavioral L3 - citeulike-article-id:1530050 N2 - There are conflicting data on the timescale for the representation of adult zebra finch song. Acoustic structure and perturbation studies suggest that song is divided into discrete vocal elements, or syllables, lasting 50200 ms. However, recordings in premotor telencephalic nucleus HVC (used as proper name) and RA (robust nucleus of arcopallium) suggest that song is represented by sparse, fine-grained bursting on the 510 ms timescale. We previously found patterns of timing variability that distinguish individual syllables and repeat across multiple 500- to 1000-ms-long motifs (Glaze and Troyer, 2006). Here, we extend our methods to analyze whether this is attributable to a syllable-based code or representations on a finer timescale. We find evidence for the latter. First, identity-dependent timing is dominated by independent variability in notes, finer song segments that compose a syllable; for example, the length of a note is no more correlated with other notes in the same syllable than it is with notes in other syllables. For a subset of notes, clear modulation in spectral structure allowed for accurate timing measurements on the 510 ms timescale. Temporal independence holds at this scale as well: the length of an individual 510 ms song slice is correlated with the same slice repeated 5001000 ms later, yet is independent of neighboring slices. We propose that such fine-grained, persistent changes in song tempo result from an interaction between slow modulatory factors and precisely timed, sparse bursting in HVC and RA. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1065-07.2007 IS - 29 JF - Journal of Neuroscience EP - 7639 TI - Behavioral Measurements of a Temporally Precise Motor Code for Birdsong VL - 27 SP - 7631 KW - birdsong KW - coding KW - information KW - motor AU - Glaze, Christopher AU - Troyer, Todd PY - 2007/July/18/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1065-07.2007 ER -