Fernando Nottebohm¹ & Masakazu Konishi²

¹Rockefeller University field research centre, Tyrrel Road, RR2, PO Box 38B, Millbrook, NY 12545 USA, e-mail nottebo@rockvax.rockefeller.edu; ²Division of Biology 216-76, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA, e-mail konishim@starbasel.caltech.edu

Nottebohm, F. & Konishi, M. 1999. The neurobiology of vocal learning in birds. In: Adams, N.J. & Slotow, R.H. (eds) Proc. 22 Int. Ornithol. Congr., Durban: 483. Johannesburg: BirdLife South Africa.

The last five years have witnessed an explosive expansion in the number of people working on various aspects of vocal learning in birds. In addition, there has been a marked increase in the diversity of these approaches. As a result, a lot has been learned about the anatomy and physiology of the syrinx and about brain circuits involved with the perception, acquisition and production of learned song. In addition, several laboratories are working on the molecular biology of vocal signal perception and production and the relation of changes in gene expression to perceptual learning and neuronal turnover in the song system. In this way, an enterprise that began as a series of strictly ethological questions (why, when and how do songbirds learn their song?) now has all the trappings of a mature, interdisciplinary field of study. The opportunities for insights and discoveries are greater than ever before and there is a lot of low hanging fruit!