Read More: Prehistoric Bird Brain May Be a Rosetta Stone for Avian Evolution To study learning for its own sake, young male zebra finches that had memorized their male parent's courtship song were ...

Colored green above, a songbird's cortex, which dominates the bird brain anatomy, functions similarly to a human cortex. It is the outer brain shell responsible for controlling perception and some ...

Navaornis had a larger cerebrum than Archaeopteryx, suggesting it had more advanced cognitive capabilities than the earliest ...

The research, published March 19 in the journal Nature, suggests parrots (and specifically parakeets) could be a model for ...

Brain scientists are beginning to disentangle the molecular mechanisms underlying the intrinsic motivation to learn. DURHAM, N.C. -- In his lab at Duke University, neuroscientist Richard Mooney shows ...

In his 40 years at Rockefeller University, Nottebohm was (among other things) the first researcher to map the neural circuits used to learn and produce birdsong, the first to uncover large anatomic ...

According to the press release, it didn’t matter whether the bird hit all the notes or missed some — any attempt at singing triggered the brain's reward pathways. Additionally, the better the bird ...