This is a summary of a story that was originally on Duke University School of Medicine .
New Duke research helps to answer a long-standing question in neuroscience: Where, exactly, does learning first take place in the brain?
The key might be found in a bird's song. Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine have discovered that behind the seemingly random chirps and whistles of a young zebra finch learning to sing is a highly organized process. The finding may help explain how humans learn skills like speaking, mastering a guitar solo or executing a new dance movement.
In their study, the researchers discovered a location of a single connection between brain cells, known as a synapse, where song learning originates.
After hundreds of millions of years of evolution, songbirds and humans continue to share things in common: Both learn to sing and speak by imitating a tutor, and both rely on the basal ganglia, a region of the brain where dopamine signals guide movement and learning .
Zebra finches offer a near-perfect model to determine how the basal ganglia enable vocal learning. Their brains are tiny - about the weight of a paperclip - but have millions of neurons and billions of synapses. And their songs don't come easily.
Young finches must practice tens or even hundreds of thousands of times while memorizing "the multisyllabic song motif of an adult male tutor," the researchers explained in the study.
"I like to say that zebra finches are the perfect students," said Drew Schreiner , the study's first author, who is a postdoctoral researcher at Duke School of Medicine.
Senior study author Richard Mooney , professor of neurobiology, said the implications of the study reach beyond birdsong. The same basal ganglia circuits are involved in human diseases such as Parkinson's disease and Tourette syndrome, disorders where movement or communication break down.
Understanding how learning is supposed to work, Mooney said, may help explain what happens when it doesn't.
To learn more about the study, visit the Duke University School of Medicine .
