Abstract #2132

Voss H, Tchernichovski O, Maul K, Ballon D, Helekar S

Birdsong in songbirds has emerged as a useful model of human speech in terms of its perception, acquisition and production. We studied the feasibility of functional BOLD MRI in the songbird zebra finch on a 3 Tesla whole body MRI scanner and found significant BOLD signal intensity changes for different kinds of stimuli across different brain regions. By quantifying the activation intensity, it was possible to discriminate between tutored song and other song stimulations. Our results provide insights into how to optimize fMRI in songbirds at 3T.