{"id":96995,"date":"2021-06-26T20:37:11","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T01:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=96995"},"modified":"2021-06-26T20:37:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-27T01:37:11","slug":"bird-song-could-hold-clues-for-human-disorders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/bird-song-could-hold-clues-for-human-disorders\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird song could hold clues for human disorders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong style=\"font-size: 16px\">By Caroline Catherman<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Medill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Very few animals learn speech in a way that comes close to the human method.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The repertoire of grunts, barks, and howls of most animals is innate\u2014genetically predetermined at birth. Humans, in contrast, adopt whatever language exists in their earliest environments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But songbirds learn to sing in a way similar to how humans learn to speak.\u00a0 Their songs introduce who they are, and what they want, which is typically to mate, feed, or defend their territory. Birds and humans share so many similarities that insights from studying the way they develop the ability to \u201ctalk\u201d have allowed researchers to try to determine why some human speech, cognitive, and social disorders occur, given the<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=5iqoBQAAQBAJ&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PP1&amp;dq=role+of+speech&amp;ots=22liQGIZKt&amp;sig=5eaK29rPvDjlIprwhxr_h5xQ4I4#v=onepage&amp;q=role%20of%20speech&amp;f=false\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">well-established link<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> between speech, brain function and social interaction.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stephanie White, a researcher and lab director at the University of California, Los Angeles, has studied birds for over 20 years. She says that birds provide the opportunity to study how human speech works because, in many cases, studies of human brain regions are limited to dissecting dead brains.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cBehavior doesn\u2019t translate to a dish,\u201d she added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Vocal learning in birds<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Songbirds, parrots, hummingbirds, and a few other animals learn to communicate in whatever song pattern or language their parents \u201cspeak.\u201d Just as nearly any human could learn English or Swahili or Khoisan, nearly any songbird could theoretically attempt to imitate a White-Crowned Sparrow\u2019s song or a finch\u2019s song or a robin\u2019s song, said David Rosenfield, director of Houston Methodist\u2019s Speech and Language Center. It\u2019s all done through a rare ability called v<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=1SYTud-6FWMC&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PA59&amp;dq=vocal+learning+definition&amp;ots=OGB361oeVQ&amp;sig=fM7lv566yXV3pnHLVPalceugdwg#v=onepage&amp;q=vocal%20learning%20definition&amp;f=false\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ocal learning<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Birds hear a sound in the environment, remember it, and then produce it from memory. But a bird is only able to do this during a tiny window at the beginning of its life, while certain brain areas are still flexible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If songbirds are not exposed to their tunes within a brief window as babies, their \u201ccritical period,\u201d they will never be able to sing like normal wild birds. And that means they won\u2019t be able to effectively communicate. Even if they are exposed to bird songs later in life, they can produce only crude approximations of normal bird songs, according to ethnologist Peter Marler\u2019s<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/record\/1970-12119-001\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">famous 1970 study<\/span><\/a> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">of White-Crowned Sparrows. The study exposed birds to songs at different periods and compared the resulting tunes that each bird sang.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe bottom line is that if the bird doesn&#8217;t hear what it&#8217;s supposed to produce, it won&#8217;t learn it,\u201d Rosenfield said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_97000\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-97000\" style=\"width: 1920px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-97000\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/white-crowned-4923331_1920.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/white-crowned-4923331_1920.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/white-crowned-4923331_1920-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/white-crowned-4923331_1920-1024x731.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/white-crowned-4923331_1920-768x548.jpg 768w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/white-crowned-4923331_1920-1536x1097.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-97000\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This wild White-Crowned Sparrow is the same species used in Marler&#8217;s study. (Kara Skye\/Pixabay)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><b>Vocal learning in humans<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Human vocal learning operates in a similar sequence, and, as with birds, scientists\u2019 attempts to understand language-related disorders from<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/brain\/article\/123\/10\/1983\/352143?login=true\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">stuttering<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to developmental disorders like<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/record\/2014-24745-001\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">autism<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> focus on early experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In humans, this critical window to gain fluency in a language covers the first few years of life, and ends sometime between the age of five and the onset of puberty, as found in Elissa L. Newport\u2019s 1990<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1207\/s15516709cog1401_2\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">review<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cognitive Science.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then, just as babies make babbling noises that slowly transform into words and then sentences, birds will make garbled sounds that are crude approximations of bird songs, and, with practice, transform those into full bird messages.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Marler\u2019s famous<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/psycnet.apa.org\/record\/1970-12119-001\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> 1970 study<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> theorized that birds, like babies, hold a memory of what their caregiver\u2019s language sounded like, compare it to the sounds that they are making, and adjust their sounds accordingly to match the model during language development.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Historical applications of bird research to humans<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After realizing the similarities between how humans and birds learn to speak, scientists started testing bird brains for shared brain areas and genes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many studies, such as<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC4385736\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> this 2015 report<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> by Andreas R. Pfenning of the Department of Neurobiology of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and several co-researchers, confirmed that<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/10202549\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">songbirds\u2019 brains<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> share unique pathways for speaking that are found in few species other than humans. A bird\u2019s brain area called the HVC is crucial for learning and producing song\u2014analogous to some speech-related areas of the human prefrontal cortex. This region of the brain helps control<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0896627312000463\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Area X in<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> birds, a cluster of around 2,000 genes that are dedicated to producing learned vocalizations. Area X is similar to the basal ganglia, one of the human brain regions that connect with the human prefrontal cortex and plans and controls articulation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/11586359\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2001,<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the FOXP2 gene became the first gene identified to affect the development of speech in humans, due to its relationship with many other areas of the brain and hundreds of other genes. Later research found it was crucial to birds as well: when baby birds were injected with a serum that changed the way their FOXP2 genes worked, they<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosbiology\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pbio.0050321\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">couldn\u2019t learn to sing a normal song.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since then, research on shared genes in birds and humans has advanced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cNot just for FOXP2, but for many genes, there\u2019s a greater similarity in the gene expression profile of these regions [in humans] and birdbrains than not,\u201d White said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_97001\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-97001\" style=\"width: 1386px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-97001\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-22-at-6.05.38-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1386\" height=\"1568\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-22-at-6.05.38-PM.png 1386w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-22-at-6.05.38-PM-265x300.png 265w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-22-at-6.05.38-PM-905x1024.png 905w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-22-at-6.05.38-PM-768x869.png 768w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-22-at-6.05.38-PM-1358x1536.png 1358w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1386px) 100vw, 1386px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-97001\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The steps of vocal learning are similar in birds and humans. First they hear their parents&#8217; song, then they attempt over and over again to produce it, comparing their sounds to their memory, until they finally learn to speak. (Caroline Catherman\/ MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><b>Today\u2019s translational birdsong research<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, translational research focuses on experimentally manipulating certain genes and brain areas in songbirds to see what happens. Results of these studies help scientists develop hypotheses about the role that these same genes and brain areas play in human vocal learning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/advances.sciencemag.org\/content\/7\/6\/eabd2827\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A study<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> published in Science Advances in Feb. 2021, for example, injected birds with a serum that mostly stopped FOXP1, a gene closely related to FOXP2, from controlling other genes in the HVC.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Baby birds who had heard adults singing before the injection were able to learn to sing normally, to complete the vocal learning process without problems. But birds who hadn\u2019t heard an adult sing before the injection failed to sing the notes that would allow them to communicate with other birds. They sang songs that were similar to birds that hadn\u2019t been exposed to an adult teacher at all.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before this study, researchers knew that FOXP1 would play a role in vocal learning, said Therese Koch, a co-lead author of the study. They now know more about how and why.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cPreviously, it hasn\u2019t been possible to disentangle the role of FOXP1 in \u2026 understanding an example so that you can copy it, versus the actual learning process of achieving that copy,\u201d Koch said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This study has important implications for humans. Mutations in the FOXP1 gene can lead to intellectual disabilities, developmental delays and autism-like behaviors in a disorder known as FOX-P1 related syndrome. The gene is also linked to autism spectrum disorder: studies have found that some people on the autism spectrum may have <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/molecularautism.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/2040-2392-4-23\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">too much FOXP1 expression.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, Koch said that she and her co-researchers at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center may look further into why exactly this gene could stop birds from learning from tutors, in order to understand why this gene is related to all these human disorders.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIs it the social fact \u2026 that the bird doesn\u2019t care about other birds after FOXP1 knockdown, that it\u2019s just not paying attention?\u201d Koch asked. \u201cOr is it just that it can\u2019t form those memories correctly, because potentially the neurons where we knocked down FOXP1 are involved in storing the memory of a tutor song to guide later learning? We don\u2019t know any of that yet, but all of those would be interesting future questions to look at.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The future of songbird research<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In California, White hopes to take this research even further in her<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/whitelab.ibp.ucla.edu\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> integrative biology and physiology lab at UCLA.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Because scientists have identified genes and neural networks involved in critical-period vocal learning in birds, they could in theory target those areas in drugs that will treat communication issues in humans, she said. She added that her lab researchers have tried to identify brain areas to target drugs in their resident zebra finches, but haven\u2019t found anything so far.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe going model for drug development are rodents and nonhuman primates,\u201d she said. \u201c[But] there\u2019s a gaping hole in being able to treat problems of speech delay, and kids that are nonverbal.\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the moment, there are no FDA-approved drugs marketed for stuttering. A drug prescribed for children on the autism spectrum, Risperidone, may solve issues like repetitive behaviors, but not the social-communication aspect of autism. White says songbirds may be the animal model solution, but it will take a \u201cbig shift in NIH thinking\u201d to get research to that point.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other experts suggest caution about applying songbird models to treat human communication disorders. Michael Lombardo, who directs the Laboratory for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Italy, recently published a study linking gene expression in songbirds and humans to early language outcome subgroups. But he said in an interview that there\u2019s not yet enough evidence to link songbird development to treatment for language in Autism spectrum disorder, for instance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAnything in songbirds is a much more simplified and specific process than what human language represents,\u201d he said. \u201cIt could be that things developed in research on songbirds have no real value for helping treat language problems in children with autism. But I guess we have to wait and see what research shows.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i>Caroline Catherman is a health, environment, and science reporter at Medill. You can follow her on Twitter at <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/reportername\"><i>@CECatherman.<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Caroline Catherman Medill Reports Very few animals learn speech in a way that comes close to the human method. The repertoire of grunts, barks, and howls of most animals is innate\u2014genetically predetermined at birth. Humans, in contrast, adopt whatever language exists in their earliest environments. But songbirds learn to sing in a way similar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":710,"featured_media":96998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5061,29,5092],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-health-and-science","category-spring-2021"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bird song could hold clues for human disorders - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/bird-song-could-hold-clues-for-human-disorders\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bird song could hold clues for human disorders - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Caroline Catherman Medill Reports Very few animals learn speech in a way that comes close to the human method. The repertoire of grunts, barks, and howls of most animals is innate\u2014genetically predetermined at birth. Humans, in contrast, adopt whatever language exists in their earliest environments. 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The repertoire of grunts, barks, and howls of most animals is innate\u2014genetically predetermined at birth. Humans, in contrast, adopt whatever language exists in their earliest environments. 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