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How sleep affects the developmental learning of bird song.
- Source :
-
Nature . 2/17/2005, Vol. 433 Issue 7027, p710-716. 7p. - Publication Year :
- 2005
-
Abstract
- Sleep affects learning and development in humans and other animals, but the role of sleep in developmental learning has never been examined. Here we show the effects of night-sleep on song development in the zebra finch by recording and analysing the entire song ontogeny. During periods of rapid learning we observed a pronounced deterioration in song structure after night-sleep. The song regained structure after intense morning singing. Daily improvement in similarity to the tutored song occurred during the late phase of this morning recovery; little further improvement occurred thereafter. Furthermore, birds that showed stronger post-sleep deterioration during development achieved a better final imitation. The effect diminished with age. Our experiments showed that these oscillations were not a result of sleep inertia or lack of practice, indicating the possible involvement of an active process, perhaps neural song-replay during sleep. We suggest that these oscillations correspond to competing demands of plasticity and consolidation during learning, creating repeated opportunities to reshape previously learned motor skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00280836
- Volume :
- 433
- Issue :
- 7027
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Nature
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 16113692
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03275