TY - JOUR
T1 - Cellular transcriptomics reveals evolutionary identities of songbird vocal circuits
AU - Colquitt, Bradley M.
AU - Merullo, Devin P.
AU - Konopka, Genevieve
AU - Roberts, Todd F.
AU - Brainard, Michael S.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank R. Veline and K. Li for technical assistance, and A. Alvarez-Buylla, B. Cooper, J. Johnson, M. Oldham, A. Pollen, J. Rubenstein, and M. Stryker for critical reading of the manuscript. Research reported in this publication was supported by the NINDS NIH under awards F32NS112557 to D.P.M.; F32NS098809 to B.M.C.; R01NS102488, R01NS108424, and R01DC014364 to T.F.R.; and UF1NS115821 and R21DC016340 to T.F.R. and G.K. Support was also provided by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, an advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation (HCA-A-1704-01747) to G.K., NSF IOS-1457206 to T.F.R., the James S. McDonnell Foundation 21st Century Science Initiative in Understanding Human Cognition (Scholar Award 220020467) to G.K., and HHMI Investigator award to M.S.B. G.K. is a Jon Heighten Scholar in Autism Research at UTSW.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works
PY - 2021/2/12
Y1 - 2021/2/12
N2 - Birds display advanced behaviors, including vocal learning and problem-solving, yet lack a layered neocortex, a structure associated with complex behavior in mammals. To determine whether these behavioral similarities result from shared or distinct neural circuits, we used single-cell RNA sequencing to characterize the neuronal repertoire of the songbird song motor pathway. Glutamatergic vocal neurons had considerable transcriptional similarity to neocortical projection neurons; however, they displayed regulatory gene expression patterns more closely related to neurons in the ventral pallium. Moreover, while g-aminobutyric acid-releasing neurons in this pathway appeared homologous to those in mammals and other amniotes, the most abundant avian class is largely absent in the neocortex. These data suggest that songbird vocal circuits and the mammalian neocortex have distinct developmental origins yet contain transcriptionally similar neurons.
AB - Birds display advanced behaviors, including vocal learning and problem-solving, yet lack a layered neocortex, a structure associated with complex behavior in mammals. To determine whether these behavioral similarities result from shared or distinct neural circuits, we used single-cell RNA sequencing to characterize the neuronal repertoire of the songbird song motor pathway. Glutamatergic vocal neurons had considerable transcriptional similarity to neocortical projection neurons; however, they displayed regulatory gene expression patterns more closely related to neurons in the ventral pallium. Moreover, while g-aminobutyric acid-releasing neurons in this pathway appeared homologous to those in mammals and other amniotes, the most abundant avian class is largely absent in the neocortex. These data suggest that songbird vocal circuits and the mammalian neocortex have distinct developmental origins yet contain transcriptionally similar neurons.
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U2 - 10.1126/science.abd9704
DO - 10.1126/science.abd9704
M3 - Article
C2 - 33574185
AN - SCOPUS:85100956855
VL - 371
JO - Science
JF - Science
SN - 0036-8075
IS - 6530
M1 - eabd9704
ER -