Pressure patterns
produced by adult and testosterone treated juvenile canaries.
Song
acquisition in birds belonging to the
oscine suborder is a complex phenomenon emerging from the interplay
between memory, learning and sensorimotor integration. Several stages
have been identified in the process of acquiring a normal song. The
capacity for song learning is restricted to a sensitive period in the
development, whose timing depends on experience as well as hormones,
and it varies between species. Song acquisition and production is
associated with a specific neural system known as song system.
In
this talk, I’ll show that 20 days of
T-treatment in 60 days old juvenile canaries were enough to identify
respiratory pressure patterns similar to those produced by adult
canaries. Not only adult-like pressure
patterns emerged after few days of T-treatment. We also found that
the temporal arrangement of syllables of adult song rapidly emerged.
Finally
pressure patterns are identified as sub harmonic responses of low
dimensional dynamical system.