Parrot learned to speak – BBC

Why parrots have the ability to speak other birds only sing and how it will help to understand the mechanisms of human speech, the scientists found.

parrots – one of the few animals capable of vocal learning. They are known for their mastery of mimicry, and with amazing accuracy can repeat hundreds of unique sounds, including human speech. Scientists have found, whereby the birds so successfully mimic sounds.

Parrots, singing passerines and hummingbirds chirp different dialects, learn new songs and mimic sounds. All this is made possible by the “singing centers” of the brain – the interconnected groups of neurons that coordinate singing and learning.

However, until now it remained a mystery, due to which some birds are significantly higher than others in the skill of mimicry .

An international team of researchers has discovered in the brain structural differences from parrots passerine songbirds and hummingbirds. Parrots, like other birds, imitating sounds, there are certain brain centers that control vocal learning. However, once they have found a special membrane that are involved in learning. The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE .

The biologists analyzed in detail the structural features of the brain parrots and found that in the inner center of the “Song core “There was nothing unusual in comparison with other birds. At the same time, the outer shell of the nucleus showed differing patterns of activity. Until recently it was thought that the mechanisms of singing and mimicking the sounds are connected with the centers of song nuclei, but with the surrounding shell.

«The first thing that surprised me when I studied the results, so that’s how I missed it all the previous years, no one noticed before. Rather, it speaks of human psychology, we are biased with respect to what we’re looking for. I have been studying these areas of the brain for 15 years and only now I see what’s wrong, “- said the head of the research team from Duke University neuroscientist Eric Jarvis.

The scientists examined the nine species of parrots, including wavy, pyrrhura (Pyrrhura), Corell (Nymphicus hollandicus), lovebird (Agapornis), kea (Nestor notabilis) and others. It was found that

even the most ancient species of parrot, the kea New Zealand, there is a similar structure of the shell. It is allowed to make the assumption that a group of neurons in the shells were formed 29 million years ago.

According to the scientists, the ability to imitate the sounds of parrots emerged in evolution, to communicate with relatives, protect their territory and learn.

According to Eric Jarvis, he studied gene activation PVALB parrots when stumbled upon something unusual. This gene was included at various levels in different areas. In some cases, it is activated in the middle of kernels (spherical central core of the nuclei). In other – only in the outer shell of cells surrounding the nucleus.

Most of the areas of the brain responsible for vocal learning is closely linked to areas that control movement. In these areas, the scientists also discovered the special patterns of gene expression, which explains why some parrots in addition to imitation still learning to dance to the music.

«requires considerable resources of the brain to process auditory information, to reproduce the necessary movements and mimic the sounds of other species. Now the question is how areas of the brain responsible for these abilities, specialized and in what way. Perhaps we are talking about a special group of special genes, but it is not completely clear, “- said one of the study’s authors Mukta Chakroborty. According to scientists, the results may also shed light on the neural mechanisms underlying human speech.

This study was part of a Bird 10K Project, a large-scale international project on the sequencing of the genome of all living birds. In the next five years, the researchers plan to “read” the genome of 10.5 thousand. Species known to science.