MAXICO: Oregon scientists got several lab zebra finches tipsy and analyzed their song to learn more about speech impairment caused by alcohol. They found that drunk birds slur songs just like humans slur their speech after too much drinking. The study was published in the on-line scientific journal PLOS ONE last week by a team of scientists from the Oregon Health and Science University.
In this study researchers administered zebra finches a mixture of grape juice and ethanol and after that they checked out their reactions. Researchers described that after the birds were given the mixture, there was a change in their vocal. According to the recordings the acoustics of the song altered after the birds received alcohol.
The findings stated that the most pronounced effects of the mixture were the decreased amplitude and increased entropy. The later reflected the disruption in the ability of the birds to maintain the spectral structure of song after alcohol began affecting their minds.
Furthermore various syllables that had specific acoustic structures were influenced by the mixture. The affect of alcohol reflected that there was a diversity in the neural mechanisms that are usually required for their production.
