Vocal impairments resulting from neurological disease are notoriously difficult to recapitulate in animal models, owing to differences in vocal circuitry between animals and humans. However, a team in New York has found that transgenic zebra finches expressing mutant huntingtin develop song abnormalities that resemble the vocal disorders associated with Huntington disease. The authors propose that these birds could provide a model to study the mechanisms underlying speech impairment in neurodegenerative disease.
References
Liu, W.-C. et al. Human mutant huntingtin disrupts vocal learning in transgenic songbirds. Nat. Neurosci. 10.1038/nn.4133
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Transgenic songbirds provide a model for vocal impairments in Huntington disease. Nat Rev Neurol 11, 612 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2015.188
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrneurol.2015.188