Abstract：
Rare disruptions of the transcription factor FOXP1 are implicated in a human neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by autism and/or intellectual disability with prominent problems in speech and language abilities. Avian orthologues of this transcription factor are evolutionarily conserved and highly expressed in specific regions of songbird brains, including areas associated with vocal production learning and auditory perception. Here, we investigated possible contributions of FoxP1 to song discrimination and auditory perception in juvenile and adult female zebra finches. They received lentiviral knockdowns of FoxP1 in one of two brain areas involved in auditory stimulus processing, HVC (proper name) or CMM (caudomedial mesopallium). Ninety-six females, distributed over different experimental and control groups were trained to discriminate between two stimulus songs in an operant Go/Nogo paradigm and subsequently tested with an array of stimuli. This made it possible to assess how well they recognized and categorized altered versions of training stimuli and whether localized FoxP1 knockdowns affected the role of different features during discrimination and categorization of song. Although FoxP1 expression was significantly reduced by the knockdowns, neither discrimination of the stimulus songs nor categorization of songs modified in pitch, sequential order of syllables or by reversed playback were affected. Subsequently, we analyzed the full dataset to assess the impact of the different stimulus manipulations for cue weighing in song discrimination. Our findings show that zebra finches rely on multiple parameters for song discrimination, but with relatively more prominent roles for spectral parameters and syllable sequencing as cues for song discrimination.NEW & NOTEWORTHY In humans, mutations of the transcription factor FoxP1 are implicated in speech and language problems. In songbirds, FoxP1 has been linked to male song learning and female preference strength. We found that FoxP1 knockdowns in female HVC and caudomedial mesopallium (CMM) did not alter song discrimination or categorization based on spectral and temporal information. However, this large dataset allowed to validate different cue weights for spectral over temporal information for song recognition.
摘要：
转录因子FoxP1的罕见破坏涉及人类神经发育障碍，其特征是自闭症和/或智力障碍，在言语和语言能力方面存在突出问题。该转录因子的禽类直系同源物在进化上是保守的，并在鸣禽大脑的特定区域高度表达。包括与声乐制作学习和听觉感知相关的领域。这里,我们调查了FoxP1对幼年和成年雌性斑马雀的歌曲辨别和听觉感知的可能贡献。他们在参与听觉刺激处理的两个大脑区域之一中接受了FoxP1的慢病毒敲除，HVC（专有名称）或CMM（尾内侧中镓）。96名女性,训练分布在不同的实验组和对照组中，以有效的Go/Nogo范式区分两首刺激歌曲，随后使用一系列刺激进行测试。这使得可以评估他们对训练刺激的改变版本的识别和分类程度，以及局部FoxP1击倒是否影响了歌曲辨别和分类过程中不同特征的作用。尽管FoxP1表达通过敲除显著降低,既不区分刺激歌曲，也不对音高修改的歌曲进行分类，音节的顺序或反向播放受到影响。随后，我们分析了完整的数据集，以评估不同刺激操作对歌曲辨别中线索称重的影响。我们的发现表明，斑马雀依赖于多个参数来区分歌曲，但是在频谱参数和音节排序方面具有相对更重要的作用，可以作为歌曲辨别的线索。
