Researchers see evidence of memory in the songbird brain

Twenty-four hours after the initial stimulus, the pattern of activated genes was entirely different from that of the initial response, regardless of whether the bird heard the song again on day two or not, Clayton said. Those genes that were originally upregulated or downregulated had returned to baseline, and a new network of genes was engaged. A major focus of this new network appears to be the regulation of energy metabolism. This suggests a lot is still going on in the brain, Clayton said.

"It's like we've lifted the hood and we're seeing that these things are just chugging away," Clayton said. "The bird had this one day of experience and a day later the brain is in a different state. It's still in high gear. It's still processing stuff. It's still reverberating and echoing."

Clayton is an affiliate of the Institute for Genomic Biology and of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois.

Editor's note: To reach David Clayton, call 217-244-3668; e-mail .

Discrete molecular states in the brain accompany changing responses to a vocal signal
Shu Dong, Kirstin L. Replogle, Linda Hasadsri, Brian S. Imai, Peter M. Yau, Sandra Rodriguez-Zas, Bruce R. Southey, Jonathan V. Sweedler, and David F. Clayton
PNAS. published 18 June 2009, 10.1073/pnas.0812998106
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0812998106v1?ct=ct