Masashi Tanaka

We study the brain of songbirds (Passeri), which share a variety of rare abilities with humans. Songbirds have an ability to precisely imitate the song of others and transmit the song across generations just like human culture. The complex birdsong is analogous to human language since they are acquired through imitation and used for communication governed by syntactic rules. The birdsong is also similar to music, which in humans attracts others and strengthens the social bond. What exactly are the beautiful songs of birds for? Collaborating with Professor Abe, we record and manipulate neural activity to understand the function of birdsongs and its neural underpinnings at the level of synapses, cells, and neural circuits.