It's like picking the perfect equalizer settings for your favorite song, except with your brain: the neurobiology of songbirds changes to fit their auditory environments.
In a study published this week in Public Library of Science ONE,
Rutgers University researchers moved adult zebra finches into a canary colony, and vice versa.
Surrounded by strangers singing unfamiliar songs, the birds adapted automatically: it took just nine days for tone-specific nerve cells in their inner ears to narrow in range.
The researchers likened the phenomenon to travelers who listen extra-hard while deciphering a foreign language.
Conversely, birds moved into isolation developed a broader neuroauditory range, suggesting a coarse and undiscriminating approach to hearing -- which, if an analogous process exists in humans, could explain why a lifetime of singing in the shower hasn't made me a rock star, though I certainly sound like one to myself.
Response Properties of the Auditory Telencephalon in Songbirds Change with Recent Experience and Season[PLoS ONE]
Image: Tanakawho
See Also:
- Better Bass: Skip the Subwoofer, Hack Your Hearing?
- Sound Could Rewire Dyslexic Children's Brains
- Elephants Talk Long-Distance Through Their Toes
- Scientists Prevent Brain-Cell Suicide to Keep Birds Singing
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