TY - JOUR TI - Accelerated redevelopment of vocal skills is preceded by lasting reorganization of the song motor circuitry AU - Vellema, Michiel AU - Diales Rocha, Mariana AU - Bascones, Sabrina AU - Zsebők, Sándor AU - Dreier, Jes AU - Leitner, Stefan AU - Van der Linden, Annemie AU - Brewer, Jonathan AU - Gahr, Manfred A2 - Ivry, Richard B VL - 8 PY - 2019 DA - 2019/05/17 SP - e43194 C1 - eLife 2019;8:e43194 DO - 10.7554/eLife.43194 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.43194 AB - Complex motor skills take considerable time and practice to learn. Without continued practice the level of skill performance quickly degrades, posing a problem for the timely utilization of skilled motor behaviors. Here we quantified the recurring development of vocal motor skills and the accompanying changes in synaptic connectivity in the brain of a songbird, while manipulating skill performance by consecutively administrating and withdrawing testosterone. We demonstrate that a songbird with prior singing experience can significantly accelerate the re-acquisition of vocal performance. We further demonstrate that an increase in vocal performance is accompanied by a pronounced synaptic pruning in the forebrain vocal motor area HVC, a reduction that is not reversed when birds stop singing. These results provide evidence that lasting synaptic changes in the motor circuitry are associated with the savings of motor skills, enabling a rapid recovery of motor performance under environmental time constraints. KW - skill re-acquisition KW - birdsong KW - savings KW - brain development KW - dendritic spines KW - canary JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -