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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Jan 22.
Published in final edited form as: J Chem Neuroanat. 2009 Aug 15;39(2):96–111. doi: 10.1016/j.jchemneu.2009.08.003

Figure 5. Noradrenergic modulation of auditory responses in the song system.

Figure 5

(A) Presentation to a sedated bird of the bird’s own song (BOS) through a speaker causes a robust auditory response in HVC. (B) Application of an air puff to the sedated bird briefly arouses it and causes a near complete suppression of auditory responses in NIf and HVC. Such arousing stimuli are known to activate the locus coeruleus. (C) Because of the discrete nature of the connectivity pattern in the song system and the restricted size of the different nuclei, it is possible to directly test the hypothesis that norepinephrine released onto NIf following the air puff causes the suppression of the auditory response in HVC. A cocktail of norepinephrine receptor antagonists targeted to NIf while auditory responses are recorded in HVC is able to block the action of noradrenergic inputs from the locus coeruleus and reverse the suppression of BOS responses causes by the air puff. (Based on data from Cardin and Schmidt, 2004b).