The role of perineural nets in the completion of vocal learning in canaries
Songbirds are an excellent animal model to study the mechanisms of vocal learning. Like humans, songbirds acquire their song during development through critical periods of sensory learning (memorizing the song of adults) followed by sensorimotor learning during which they progressively improve their vocal production.
T
hese stages are limited to critical periods of development but the nervous mechanisms that control the end of these so-called critical periods are not known. Perineural nets (PNN) are structures that surround neurons in general GABAergic and limit the plasticity of their synaptic connections. They are involved in the control of sensorimotor learning periods in different experimental models in mammals.
In a study published by the journal “eNeuro”, researchers from the Behavioral Neuroendocrinology Laboratory of ULiège (GIGA Neurosciences, Pr Jacques Balthazart, Charlotte Cornil, Clémentine Collignon, Gilles Cornez) and their Belgian and American colleagues demonstrate that perineural nets (PNN), i.e., structures that limit plasticity of synaptic connections in subsets of neurons, are present in high density in the song control nuclei of canaries and they appear during development when males complete their sensorimotor learning. They seem therefore to be specifically involved in controlling the closure of this sensitive period of development.
Reference
Gilles Cornez, Clémentine Collignon, Wendt Müller, Charlotte A. Cornil, Gregory F. Ball, & Jacques Balthazart, Development of perineuronal nets during ontogeny correlates with sensorimotor vocal learning in canaries, eNeuro,
doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0361-19.2020
