Brenowitz E A
Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle 98195.
Science. 1991 Jan 18;251(4991):303-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1987645.
Female birds that do not normally sing possess brain nuclei associated with song production in males. To determine whether one song nucleus, the caudal nucleus of the ventral hyperstriatum (HVc), acts in conspecific song perception, courtship responses of female canaries to canary and white-crowned sparrow songs were compared before and after HVc lesions. Bilateral lesions of a portion of the HVc resulted in copulation solicitations to heterospecific song as well as conspecific song. Control females continued to respond only to conspecific song. This suggests that the HVc is critical for conspecific song perception in females. Because female canaries do not normally sing, neurons in female HVc must develop response selectivity by a mechanism different from that proposed for male birds in the motor theory of song perception.
通常不会唱歌的雌鸟拥有与雄鸟鸣唱产生相关的脑核。为了确定一个歌唱核团，即腹侧纹状体尾核（HVc），是否参与同种鸟鸣唱感知，在损毁HVc前后，比较了雌性金丝雀对金丝雀和白冠麻雀歌声的求偶反应。对HVc的一部分进行双侧损毁后，雌鸟对异种歌声和同种歌声都会有交配 solicitation行为。对照雌性则继续只对同种歌声做出反应。这表明HVc对雌性的同种鸟鸣唱感知至关重要。由于雌性金丝雀通常不唱歌，雌性HVc中的神经元必须通过一种不同于在歌唱感知运动理论中针对雄鸟所提出的机制来发展反应选择性。 （注：原文中“copulation solicitations”直译为“交配 solicitation行为”，这里的“solicitation”可能在行为学中有特定含义，但因缺乏更多背景信息暂无法准确意译，需结合专业知识理解。）
