David Clayton

Songbird Memory: A Little Slow On The Uptake?

June 26, 2009 by rkaufman

Talk about your bird brains: A zebra finch's brain changes dramatically after hearing a new song, and even 24 hours later, the bird's still processing the information.

When the finches were exposed to new tunes from a member of its own species, the experience switches on and off thousands of genes, offering researchers a new insight into songbird memory.

The study will be published in this month's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.