These Singing Mice Squeak Back and Forth—and Don't Interrupt. Scientists Found the Brain Pathway Behind Their Impressive Songs

An illustration of an Alston s singing mouse from the 1882 publication Biologia Centrali-Americana: Mammalia Public domain via Wikimedia Commons When it comes to conversation, the closest the animal kingdom gets to human-like abilities may be found in an unassuming Central American mouse. Alston’s singing mice let loose chirping songs that can go on for up to 16 seconds, and they don’t just perform solo. Often, two mice will squeak back and forth, refraining from interrupting each other and achieving a conversational cadence similar to that of two humans engaged in a witty repartee.

Working with a team of researchers at New York University, Arkarup Banerjee, now a biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, determined in 2019 that the singing mice’s conversations were much like our own. Still, scientists wanted to learn more about the neural mechanisms behind such complex rodent chatter. Now, in a study published last week in the journal Nature, Banerjee and his collaborators suggest they’ve identified the pathways in the brain that enable the mice to converse—and the mechanism is surprisingly simple.

When comparing the rodents to non-singing lab mice, the researchers thought that they might find novel neural circuitry or unique brain regions in the singers. However, the Alston’s singing mice showed only an enhancement of existing neural pathways. Scientists hope this discovery could spark new insights about the evolution of both human language and puzzling animal behaviors.