MOTOR-DRIVEN GENE-EXPRESSION

There is increased neuronal firing in the high vocal center (a motor n ucleus) and other song nuclei of canaries, Serinus canaria, and zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, whenever these songbirds sing or hear so ng. These observations suggested that song perception involved sensory and motor pathways. We now show that the act of singing, but not hear ing song, induces a rapid and striking increase (up to 60-fold) in exp ression of the transcriptional regulator ZENK in the high vocal center and other song nuclei. This motor-driven gene expression is independe nt of auditory feedback, since it occurs in deafened birds when they s ing and in muted birds when they produce silent song. Conversely, hear ing song, but not the act of singing, induces ZENK expression in parts of the auditory forebrain. Our observations show that even though the same auditory stimulus activates sensory and motor pathways, percepti on and production of song are accompanied by anatomically distinct pat terns of gene expression.