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Sleep consolidates memories for competing tasks

Sleep plays an important role in the brain’s ability to consolidate learning when two new potentially competing tasks are learned in the same day, research at the University of Chicago demonstrates.

Other studies have shown that sleep consolidates learning for a new task. The new study, which measured starlings’ ability to recognize new songs, shows that learning a second task can undermine the performance of a previously learned task. But this study is the first to show that a good night’s sleep helps the brain retain both new memories. (more…)

Songbirds’ Brains Coordinate Singing with Intricate Timing, Study Shows

By Guest PostMarch 2, 2013Nature, Scienceactivity, ana amador, anatomy, aphasia, avian vocal organ, basic motor functions, brain, buenos aires, control vocalizations, coordinate singing, coordinating human speech, daniel margoliash, disorder, dynamics of movement, feedback, gabriel mindlin, highly skilled behavior, howard nusbaum, human brain, human speech production, model, neuroscientist, premotor cortical neurons, single neurons, song, song system, songbird, songs of birds, speech, speech problems, stroke, stuttering, syrinx, timing, university, university of chicago, vocal signals, yonatan sanz perl, zebra finches

Research may help explain how human brain governs speech

As a bird sings, some neurons in its brain prepare to make the next sounds while others are synchronized with the current notes—a coordination of physical actions and brain activity that is needed to produce complex movements, new research at the University of Chicago shows.

In an article in the current issue of Nature, neuroscientist Daniel Margoliash and colleagues show, for the first time, how the brain is organized to govern skilled performance—a finding that may lead to new ways of understanding human speech production. (more…)

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Sleep consolidates memories for competing tasks

Songbirds’ Brains Coordinate Singing with Intricate Timing, Study Shows