Dual pathway architecture in songbirds boosts sensorimotor learning
Remya Sankar,Nicolas P. Rougier,Arthur Leblois · COSYNE 2022
Juvenile songbirds learn to imitate adult vocalizations. Song acquisition and production is governed by a dedicated neural circuitry that involves two parallel pathways: a cortical pathway required for production and a basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical (BG) pathway necessary for plasticity. The BG pathway induces variability in production during vocal exploration, receives a performance signal via midbrain dopaminergic projections and drives a motor bias that corrects vocal errors. This dopamine-modulated change in vocal output, induced by the BG is gradually consolidated within the cortical path
Sat, Mar 19, 2022