Rhythmic Activity in a Forebrain Vocal Control NucleusIn Vitro

Abstract

The learned vocalizations of songbirds constitute a rhythmic behavior that is thought to be governed by a central pattern generator and that is accompanied by highly patterned neural activity. Phasic premotor activity is observed during singing in HVC [used as a proper name following the nomenclature of Reiner et al. (2004)], a telencephalic song system nucleus that is essential for song production. Moreover, HVC neurons display phasic patterns of auditory activity in response to song stimulation. To address the cellular basis of pattern generation in HVC, we investigated its rhythm-generating abilities.