2022 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
How attention regulates auditory perception during song learning?
| Project/Area Number |
19K16302
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| Research Institution | Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University |
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Principal Investigator |
KATIC Jelena 沖縄科学技術大学院大学, 臨界期の神経メカニズム研究ユニット, ポストドクトラルスカラー (10834947)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | song learning / LC-NCM neuronal circuit |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
This year, a final analysis of the experiments with juvenile animals injected with viruses carrying Arch-GFP (Arch) or only GFP (control) was conducted. Arch animals who had injected Arch opsin in the LC and had opto-inhibited Arch terminals in the NCM only during song learning, when the tutor was singing, had lower song similarity scores with the tutor song than the Control animals. The songs of the birds in the Arch group did not mature, similar to those of isolated males who never received tutoring. LC-NCM circuit appears to be necessary for song learning and memory formation in juvenile birds. Results were written in a paper manuscript, and the manuscript was submitted and published. Follow-up experiments on LC activity in adult male birds were conducted, and a collaboration with the University of Vienna was established. Follow-up experiments with the noradrenergic receptor (ADRB2) antagonist Propranolol were conducted. Preliminary results with Propranolol injected in the NCM of juveniles during tutoring sessions showed that those animals unsuccessfully copied tutor songs, compared to their siblings injected with the same amount of Saline in the NCM. I trained a Ph.D. student in the Unit to convey additional experiments with ADRB2 antagonists and agonists, which became his Ph.D. thesis.
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