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Understanding The Role Of Nutritional Stress In The Adult And Developing Zebra Finch, Jessica Bayley Thompson

Wayne State University Dissertations

Songbirds are particularly susceptible to stress during the sensitive period for song learning. Thus the developmental stress hypothesis (DSH) proposes that adult song reflects a male's early life environment during this period. Nutritional stress (NS) has been shown to cause deficits in song learning and adult song output that are salient to females. Female song birds consistently prefer control males over those raised under NS, yet the effects NS on females are still unclear. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) has been implicated in this process. However, evidence directly linking HPA functioning to the deficits due to NS have inconsistently shown elevations …