University of Maryland Vice President for Research Dr. Gregory F. Ball, a leading researcher in the field of avian neuroscience, and his research team earned a prominent spotlight by gracing the cover of a top-tier scientific journal. The Journal of Comparative Physiology featured the team’s research with an image of the red-cheeked cordon bleu (RCCB) on its September 2024 cover.
The team’s research paper, titled “Song System Neuroanatomy, and Immediate Early Gene Expression in a Finch Species With Extensive Male and Female Song” explores birdsong, a well-studied behavior often used to understand how animals learn to produce sounds and navigate social interactions. Historically, research has focused mostly on male birds, but it is now clear that female birds sing too, and this is common in many songbird species. Despite this, lab research has been slow to study female songbirds, even though understanding how their singing works is key to learning about the biological and hormonal factors that control this behavior—and what it might teach us about humans.
Dr. Ball and the research team, which includes Dr. Evangeline Rose, a postdoctoral fellow and Ph.D. graduate of the University of Maryland Baltimore County who was the first author of the paper, studied the RCCB, an Estrildid finch species known for extensive female singing. They found that males and females are surprisingly similar in several aspects: their hormone levels (testosterone and progesterone), singing rates, and the brain structures involved in song production. The volume of one key brain region and activity markers tied to singing were also nearly identical in both sexes. This challenges the assumption that male and female birdsong systems are significantly different and highlights the importance of including female songbirds in lab studies.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Ball has published over 350 papers, reviews, and commentaries, with much of the work focusing on the neural mechanisms associated with plasticity, learning, behavior, and reproduction in birds. These papers have now received over 27,000 citations according to Google scholar (H index 85). He was recently awarded the 2024 Donald S. Farner Medal for Excellence in Research in the Field of Avian Endocrinology, the Elliot Coues Award From the American Ornithological Society, as well as the Daniel S. Lehrman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology.
Read his newest article: https://journals.scholarsportal.info/details/03407594/v210i0005/735_ssnaiewemafs.xml