Decoding birds' brain signals into syllables of song

Date:
September 23, 2021
Source:
University of California - San Diego
Summary:
Researchers can predict what syllables a bird will sing -- and when
it will sing them -- by reading electrical signals in its brain,
reports a new study. The work is an early step toward building
vocal prostheses for humans who have lost the ability to speak.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Researchers can predict what syllables a bird will sing--and when it
will sing them--by reading electrical signals in its brain, reports a
new study from the University of California San Diego.


========================================================================== Having the ability to predict a bird's vocal behavior from its brain
activity is an early step toward building vocal prostheses for humans
who have lost the ability to speak.

"Our work sets the stage for this larger goal," said Daril Brown, an
electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. student at the UC San Diego
Jacobs School of Engineering and the first author of the study, which
was published Sept. 23 in PLoS Computational Biology. "We're studying
birdsong in a way that will help us get one step closer to engineering a
brain machine interface for vocalization and communication." The study explores how brain activity in songbirds such as the zebra finch can be
used to forecast the bird's vocal behavior. Songbird vocalizations are
of particular interest to researchers because of their similarities to
human speech; they are both complex and learned behaviors.

In this work, the researchers implanted silicon electrodes in the brains
of male adult zebra finches and recorded the birds' neural activity while
they sang. The researchers studied a specific set of electrical signals
called local field potentials. These signals were recorded in the part
of the brain that is necessary for the learning and production of song.

What's special about local field potentials is that they are being used
to predict vocal behavior in humans. These signals have so far been
heavily studied in human brains, but not in songbird brains.



==========================================================================
UC San Diego researchers wanted to fill this gap and see if these
same signals in zebra finches could similarly be used to predict vocal behavior. The project is a cross-collaborative effort between engineers
and neuroscientists at UC San Diego led by Vikash Gilja, a professor
of electrical and computer engineering professor, and Timothy Gentner,
a professor of psychology and neurobiology.

"Our motivation for exploring local field potentials was that most of the complementary human work for speech prostheses development has focused on
these types of signals," said Gilja. "In this paper, we show that there
are many similarities in this type of signaling between the zebra finch
and humans, as well as other primates. With these signals we can start to decode the brain's intent to generate speech." "In the longer term, we
want to use the detailed knowledge we are gaining from the songbird brain
to develop a communication prosthesis that can improve the quality of life
for humans suffering a variety of illnesses and disorders," said Gentner.

The researchers found that different features of the local field
potentials translate into specific syllables of the bird's song, as well
as when the syllables will occur during song.

"Using this system, we're able to predict with high fidelity the onset
of a songbird's vocal behavior--what sequence the bird is going to sing,
and when it is going to sing it," said Brown.

The researchers can even predict variations in the song sequence, down to
the syllable. For example, say the bird's song is built on a repeating
set of syllables, "1, 2, 3, 4," and every now and then the sequence can
change to something like "1, 2, 3, 4, 5," or "1, 2, 3." Features in the
local field potentials reveal these changes, the researchers found.

"These forms of variation are important for us to test hypothetical speech prostheses, because a human doesn't just repeat one sentence over and
over again," said Gilja. "It's exciting that we found parallels in the
brain signals that are being recorded and documented in human physiology studies to our study in songbirds." Paper: "Local Field Potentials in
a Pre-motor Region Predict Learned Vocal Sequences." Co-authors include
Jairo I. Chavez, Derek H. Nguyen, Adam Kadwory, Bradley Voytek and
Ezequiel M. Arneodo, UC San Diego.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01DC008358, R01DC018055, R01GM134363), the National Science Foundation (BCS-1736028),
the Kavli Institute for the Brain and Mind (IRG #2016-004), the Office of
Naval Research (MURI N00014-13-1-0205), and the University of California-- Historically Black Colleges and Universities Initiative.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_San_Diego. Original written by Liezel
Labios. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Daril E. Brown II, Jairo I. Chavez, Derek H. Nguyen, Adam Kadwory,
Bradley Voytek, Ezequiel M. Arneodo, Timothy Q. Gentner , Vikash
Gilja.

Local field potentials in a pre-motor region predict learned
vocal sequences. PLoS Computational Biology, 2021 DOI: 10.1371/
journal.pcbi.1008100 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210923153306.htm

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