Feb. 27, 2013 — As a bird sings, some neurons in its brain
prepare to make the next sounds while others are synchronized with the current
notes—a coordination of physical actions and brain activity that is needed to
produce complex movements, new research at the University of Chicago shows.
In an article in the current issue of Nature, neuroscientist Daniel
Margoliash and colleagues show, for the first time, how the brain is organized
to govern skilled performance—a finding that may lead to new ways of
understanding human speech production.
The new study shows that birds’ physical movements actually are made up of a multitude of smaller actions. “It is amazing that such small units of movements are encoded, and so precisely, at the level of the forebrain,” said Margoliash, a professor of organismal biology and anatomy and psychology at UChicago.
The new study shows that birds’ physical movements actually are made up of a multitude of smaller actions. “It is amazing that such small units of movements are encoded, and so precisely, at the level of the forebrain,” said Margoliash, a professor of organismal biology and anatomy and psychology at UChicago.
“This work provides new insight into how the physics of producing
vocal signals are represented in the brain to control vocalizations,” said
Howard Nusbaum, a professor of psychology at UChicago and an expert on speech.
No comments:
Post a Comment