Miriam V. Rivas

TL;DR: This work explored bird macroevolution using full genomes from 48 avian species representing all major extant clades to reveal that pan-avian genomic diversity covaries with adaptations to different lifestyles and convergent evolution of traits.

TL;DR: The finding that convergent neural circuits for vocal learning are accompanied by convergent molecular changes of multiple genes in species separated by millions of years from a common ancestor indicates that brain circuits for complex traits may have limited ways in which they could have evolved from that ancestor.

TL;DR: This study is the first global mapping that is aware for movement-associated areas of the avian cerebrum and it indicates that brain systems that control vocal learning in distantly related birds are directly adjacent to brain systems involved in movement control.

TL;DR: It is proposed that the avian pallium has four major cell populations similar to those in mammalian cortex and some parts of the amygdala, and it is suggested that this organization of cell groups forms by expansion of contiguous developmental cell domains that wrap around the lateral ventricle and its extension through the middle of the mesopallium.

TL;DR: This work constructed 21 regular, normalized, and subtracted full-length cDNA libraries from brains of zebra finches in 57 developmental and behavioral conditions in an attempt to clone as much of the brain transcriptome as possible.