Lesions of the anterior forebrain song control pathway in female canaries affect song perception in an operant task

We tested whether the avian anterior forebrain pathway functions in song pe rception in female canaries, and whether it is specialized for conspecific song perception or functions more generally in auditory perception. Using o perant conditioning methods, me trained female canaries to discriminate amo ng synthetic sound stimuli, canary songs, and song sparrow songs. We also t rained each bird to discriminate among visual stimuli to test for general e ffects of lesions on performance. When canaries had learned the discriminat ion tasks, bilateral electrolytic lesions of the lateral portion of the mag nocellular nucleus of the anterior neostriatum (IMAN) were made. The lesion ed birds were then tested on the previously learned discrimination tasks. L esions that destroyed most or all of IMAN decreased the ability of female c anaries to discriminate between previously learned pairs of acoustic stimul i of all types, while visual discrimination was unaffected, These results s uggest that the female canary anterior forebrain pathway contributes to the perception of acoustic stimuli, with this contribution including heterospe cific song and other acoustic stimuli as wed as canary song. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.