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REVIEW article

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnint.2025.1650323

Integrative Neural Mechanisms for Social Communication of Learned Vocal Behavior

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Department of Biology, The City College of New York, New York, United States
  • 2Department of Biology, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Context-sensitive behaviors are crucial for the adaptive success of many organisms. Investigating neural processes that facilitate context-sensitive behavior requires knowledge of the molecular signaling and anatomical brain connectivity within and between relevant brain networks. Here, we outline the roles of oxytocin and dopamine signaling systems in context-sensitive singing in songbirds. Additionally, using the recently compiled songbird connectome, we review anatomical connectivity between vocal-motor and social brain networks that may facilitate context-sensitive singing. We present a model for context-sensitive adaptability of singing behavior in songbirds. We propose that the medial preoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus may serve as the output nucleus of the social behavior network, influencing oxytocin-mediated dopamine delivery to the vocal control network, in a context-sensitive manner. As many components of this model are conserved across species, we speculate that this proposed model can be generalized to facilitate context-sensitive motor behaviors across vertebrate species. Overall, we emphasize the importance of investigating each component of our proposed model, within a single species. This perspective aims to uncover how integrated neural mechanisms give rise to behavior.

Keywords: songbird, Zebra finch, Social Behavior, Systems neuroscience, Dopamine, Oxytocin

Received: 19 Jun 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Anderson and Whitney. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Katherine L. Anderson, kanderson3@ccny.cuny.edu
Osceola Whitney, owhitney@ccny.cuny.edu

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