Song Practice Promotes Acute Vocal Variability at a Key Stage of Sensorimotor Learning

BACKGROUND: Trial by trial variability during motor learning is a feature encoded by the basal ganglia of both humans and songbirds, and is important for reinforcement of optimal motor patterns, including those that produce speech and birdsong. Given the many parallels between these behaviors, songbirds provide a useful model to investigate neural mechanisms underlying vocal learning. In juvenile and adult male zebra finches, endogenous levels of FoxP2, a molecule critical for language, decrease two hours after morning song onset within area X, part of the basal ganglia-forebrain pathway dedicated to song. In juveniles, experimental 'knockdown' of area X FoxP2 results in abnormally variable song in adulthood. These findings motivated our hypothesis that low FoxP2 levels increase vocal variability, enabling vocal motor exploration in normal birds. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: After two hours in either singing or non-singing conditions (previously shown to produce differential area X FoxP2 levels), phonological and sequential features of the subsequent songs were compared across conditions in the same bird. In line with our prediction, analysis of songs sung by 75 day (75d) birds revealed that syllable structure was more variable and sequence stereotypy was reduced following two hours of continuous practice compared to these features following two hours of non-singing. Similar trends in song were observed in these birds at 65d, despite higher overall within-condition variability at this age. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Together with previous work, these findings point to the importance of behaviorally-driven acute periods during song learning that allow for both refinement and reinforcement of motor patterns. Future work is aimed at testing the observation that not only does vocal practice influence expression of molecular networks, but that these networks then influence subsequent variability in these skills

Physiological Correlates of Volunteering

We review research on physiological correlates of volunteering, a neglected but promising research field. Some of these correlates seem to be causal factors influencing volunteering. Volunteers tend to have better physical health, both self-reported and expert-assessed, better mental health, and perform better on cognitive tasks. Research thus far has rarely examined neurological, neurochemical, hormonal, and genetic correlates of volunteering to any significant extent, especially controlling for other factors as potential confounds. Evolutionary theory and behavioral genetic research suggest the importance of such physiological factors in humans. Basically, many aspects of social relationships and social activities have effects on health (e.g., Newman and Roberts 2013; Uchino 2004), as the widely used biopsychosocial (BPS) model suggests (Institute of Medicine 2001). Studies of formal volunteering (FV), charitable giving, and altruistic behavior suggest that physiological characteristics are related to volunteering, including specific genes (such as oxytocin receptor [OXTR] genes, Arginine vasopressin receptor [AVPR] genes, dopamine D4 receptor [DRD4] genes, and 5-HTTLPR). We recommend that future research on physiological factors be extended to non-Western populations, focusing specifically on volunteering, and differentiating between different forms and types of volunteering and civic participation

Live-cell three-dimensional single-molecule tracking reveals modulation of enhancer dynamics by NuRD.

Acknowledgements: We thank T. Kretschmann for preparing the figures for publication, L. Lavis (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Farm) for providing the JF549 dye, J. Wysocka (Stanford) for the Tbx3 constructs used for 2D enhancer tracking, A. Riddell for flow cytometry and the CSCI imaging (P. Humphreys and D. Clements) and DNA sequencing (M. Paramor and V. Murray) facilities. We thank K. Bowman, G. Brown and A. Crombie for preliminary computational analysis of NuRD-regulated genes and 2D enhancer tracking experiments, respectively. We thank the EU FP7 Integrated Project ‘4DCellFate’ (277899 E.D.L., B.D.H., I.B., C.S. and L.D.C.), the Medical Research Council (MR/P019471/1 E.D.L.) and the Wellcome Trust (206291/Z/17/Z E.D.L.) for program funding. We also thank the MRC (MR/R009759/1 B.D.H., and MR/M010082/1 E.D.L.), the Wellcome Trust (106115/Z/14/Z I.B. and 210701/Z/18/Z C.S.) and the Isaac Newton Trust (17.24(aa) B.D.H.) for project grant funding, and we thank the Wellcome Trust/MRC for core funding (203151/Z/16/Z) to the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (including a starter grant to S.B.).To understand how the nucleosome remodeling and deacetylase (NuRD) complex regulates enhancers and enhancer-promoter interactions, we have developed an approach to segment and extract key biophysical parameters from live-cell three-dimensional single-molecule trajectories. Unexpectedly, this has revealed that NuRD binds to chromatin for minutes, decompacts chromatin structure and increases enhancer dynamics. We also uncovered a rare fast-diffusing state of enhancers and found that NuRD restricts the time spent in this state. Hi-C and Cut&Run experiments revealed that NuRD modulates enhancer-promoter interactions in active chromatin, allowing them to contact each other over longer distances. Furthermore, NuRD leads to a marked redistribution of CTCF and, in particular, cohesin. We propose that NuRD promotes a decondensed chromatin environment, where enhancers and promoters can contact each other over longer distances, and where the resetting of enhancer-promoter interactions brought about by the fast decondensed chromatin motions is reduced, leading to more stable, long-lived enhancer-promoter relationships

Live-cell 3D single-molecule tracking reveals how NuRD modulates enhancer dynamics

Abstract Enhancer-promoter dynamics are critical for the spatiotemporal control of gene expression, but it remains unclear how these dynamics are controlled by chromatin regulators, such as the nucleosome remodelling and deacetylase (NuRD) complex. Here, we use Hi-C experiments to show that the intact NuRD complex increases CTCF/Cohesin binding and the probability of the interaction of intermediate-range (∼1Mb) genomic sequences. To understand how NuRD alters 3D genome structure in this way, we developed an approach to segment and extract key biophysical parameters from trajectories of the NuRD complex determined using live-cell 3D single-molecule imaging. Unexpectedly, this revealed that the intact NuRD complex decompacts chromatin structure and makes NuRD-bound sequences move faster, thus increasing the overall volume of the nucleus that these sequences explore. Interestingly, we also uncovered a rare fast-diffusing state of chromatin that exhibits directed motion. The intact NuRD complex reduces the amount of time that enhancers/promoters remain in this fast-diffusing state, which we propose would otherwise re-organise enhancer-promoter proximity. Thus, we uncover an intimate connection between a chromatin remodeller and the spatial dynamics of the local region of the genome to which it binds