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This is scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Jason Goldman. Babies are constantly surrounded by human language, always listening and processing.

Eventually they put sounds together to produce a daddy or a mama.

But what is still elusive to

neuroscientists is exactly how the brain works to put it all together. To begin to

figure it out, a team of researchers turned to a frequent stand-in for human infants when it comes to language

learning, the song learning Zebra Finch.

Well, we've known for about 70 years or so that songbirds learned their song by first forming a memory of

their father's song or another adult song and then they use that memory in

order to guide their song learning.

Neuroscientist Todd Roberts from the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Texas.

It's been a long-term goal of the field to try to figure out how or where in the brain this memory is, this form of learning, this type of imitative learning that birds do, is very similar to the type of learning that we engage in on a regular basis.

Particularly when we're young, we use this type of learning to guide our speech learning.

Roberts and his team had a hunch that the interface between sensory areas and motor areas in the brain was critical for this process.

And they zeroed in on a group of brain cells called the NIF.

In order to really prove that we were on the right track and that we could identify these circuits.

We thought that maybe we could go in and see if we can implant a false memory.

To do it, the researchers used a technique called optogenetics. First, they used a virus to cause the

neurons in the birds NIF to become sensitive to light. Then, using a tiny electrode as a flashlight, they activated the

neurons. The length of each pulse of light corresponded with the amount of time the neurons

...