From birdsong to neurodegenerative diseases
In birds, singing behaviour is controlled by steroid hormones. Testosterone is essential for learning to sing but also in order to sing as an adult. Previous studies have revealed brain structures controlling song in birds and the influence of testosterone and of the singing behaviour itself on the size of these structures. Professor Jacques Balthazart, from the GIGA Neurosciences at the University of Liege (Department of Biomedical and Preclinical Sciences / Biology of Sexual Differentiation), and his colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore MD, USA) have shown that in canaries, testosterone acts on different areas of the brain to control song and neurogenesis: it acts on the nucleus HVC to control the quality and structure of the song, and on the preoptic area to modulate the motivation to sing. In turn, singing induces an increase in neuroplasticity, i.e. the brain’s ability to restructure the connections between neurons and replace them. The hope is therefore to be able to transpose the mechanisms of plasticity observed in canaries to humans. "In the very long term”, Jacques Balthazart observes, “the idea is that if we manage to create neurogenesis or promote greater neurogenesis in the human brain, we will be able to counter, and even cure neurodegenerative diseases, or manage to repair, at least partly, traumatic brain damage". A brain for all seasons?But why this interest for the brains of songbirds? “I have been working on the hormonal control of behaviour for 40 years and, within this framework, I have been focusing on two main areas of research: one concerning the control of male behaviour, based on the Japanese quail, and the other on the plasticity of the brain of songbirds”, specifies Jacques Balthazart, who has been working for this research with Gregory Ball and Beau Alward from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. This research is part of a major international project that has been running for more than 25 years, funded by the Belgian Science Policy and the American NIH (National Institutes of Health). |
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© 2007 ULi�ge
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