TWEET, TWEET: The zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) is fast becoming an important model for the study of neurodegenerative diseases.COURTESY OF MASASHI TANAKA
Richard Mooney’s grandfather, a mechanical engineer, couldn’t imagine why birds would be useful for understanding the human brain. “The same way that taking apart a one-cylinder lawn mower can prepare you for how a supercharged V8 in a Formula One racer works,” explained Mooney, a neurobiologist at Duke University Medical Center. In fact, striking similarities between songbird and human brains are now driving bird neurobiology research in a new direction: the study of human neurodegenerative diseases.
Songbirds and people share the rare ability to learn vocal patterns through imitation, a skill driven by similar brain areas that have functionally converged over evolutionary time. This is true even at the genetic level, as Mooney’s Duke neurobiology colleague Erich Jarvis demonstrated in 2014. Songbird gene expression in ...
