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The pre-motor song control nucleus RA (robust nucleus of the arcopallium) receives projections from two distinct populations of projection neurons. Recent findings have shown that the ratio of dendritic arbor for input neurons from HVC (used here as proper name) to RA (HVC-RA) relative to arbor for input neurons from LMAN (lateral magnocellular nucleus of the nidopallium) (LMAN-RA) is positively correlated with post crystallization singing rate and adult age in zebra finches. HVC-RA projection neurons are known to promote motor program stereotypy, whereas LMAN-RA projection neurons have been linked to motor variability. When combined with earlier studies indicating that zebra finches continue to increase their song stereotypy well into adulthood, these findings suggest that changes in dendritic morphology may be functionally related to increases in song stereotypy. With increasing age, the bird's cumulative singing experience may be focused towards a goal of improving song stereotypy. However, there have been no studies directly testing for a link between individual differences in dendritic arbor ratios and adult song stereotypy in the same birds. I proposed that higher singing rates and superior song stereotypy would correlate with greater dendritic arbor (as measured by average dendritic length, total dendritic length, and total number of dendritic segments) among HVC-RA cells and less dendritic arbor among LMAN-RA cells. Specifically, I predicted that there would be a positive correlation between both singing and song stereotypy with the ratio of HVC/LMAN dendritic arbor. To test this hypothesis, 10 male zebra finches between the ages of six to seven months were recorded for 24 hours for seven days. Immediately following these recordings, birds were injected 4 with rodamine dextran amines into RA to fluorescently label both HVC-RA cells and LMAN-RA cells for measuring dendritic attributes. I found that there were significant relationships between song stereotypy (but not singing rate) and the amount of dendritic arbor of HVC-RA cells, LMAN-RA cells, and the ratio of HVC-RA/LMAN-RA cells. These results suggest that the observed increase in this ratio is a cause or consequence of adult vocal motor refinement.

Adult Song Stereotypy Linked To Neuronal Morphology in Two Song System Regions