George Isabelle, Cousillas Hugo, Richard Jean-Pierre, Hausberger Martine
Université de Rennes 1, UMR CNRS 6552, Campus de Beaulieu, bât.25, Ethologie-Evolution-Ecologie, 35042 RENNES Cedex, France.
Brain Res. 2005 Jun 21;1047(2):245-60. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2005.04.047.
The present study, using a systematic recording method that we recently developed, describes the behavior of the neurons of the vocal control nucleus HVC in response to a variety of acoustic stimuli in a songbird species with multiple song types, the European starling. Most neurons did not respond to any of the stimuli that were presented, and those neurons that did respond responded to a different number of stimuli and showed distinct response features. The latter were thus classified into 3 categories, according to the number of stimuli to which they responded. Although only intracellular data could unambiguously determine to which population the neurons we recorded belonged, these 3 categories might correspond to the 3 populations of neurons that have been previously described in the HVC. Interestingly, responsive neurons of the 3 categories appeared to mainly respond to stimuli that were not the bird's own song. However, most of the stimuli to which the HVC neurons responded correspond to sounds that are important in the everyday social life of the starlings. We thus discuss our results in relation to the social life of these birds, to possible species differences in the processing of communicative signals, and to methodological issues.
本研究采用我们最近开发的系统记录方法，描述了在具有多种歌曲类型的鸣禽——欧洲椋鸟中，发声控制核团HVC的神经元对各种声学刺激的反应。大多数神经元对所呈现的任何刺激都没有反应，而那些有反应的神经元对不同数量的刺激有反应，并表现出不同的反应特征。根据它们对刺激的反应数量，后者被分为3类。虽然只有细胞内数据才能明确确定我们记录的神经元属于哪一类群体，但这3类可能对应于先前在HVC中描述的3类神经元群体。有趣的是，这3类反应性神经元似乎主要对不是鸟类自身歌声的刺激做出反应。然而，HVC神经元做出反应的大多数刺激对应于在椋鸟日常社会生活中很重要的声音。因此，我们结合这些鸟类的社会生活、交流信号处理中可能存在的物种差异以及方法学问题来讨论我们的结果。
