YOUNG Zebra finches learn to sing by babbling, just like human babies. Most people had assumed that the birds babble because they are learning to control the muscles in their mouths for singing, but in fact babbling is controlled by a different part of the brain.
A team led by Michale Fee, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examined finches missing the part of the brain which controls these muscles and is responsible for adult birdsong. They say these birds don’t become mute but instead revert to babbling (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1155140).
The finch’s babbling turns out to…
