Does Singing Give Birds a Natural High?

European Starling. Kentish Plumber, via Flickr. Distributed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.

Songbirds seem to enjoy singing. And while a great deal of research has investigated the development and production of birdsong, little is known about the motivation to sing. Now, new research teases out the relationship between singing, reward, and endogenous opioids in songbirds. The results suggest that studying songbirds can teach us about the shared neurobiological mechanisms underlying social reward in all vertebrates, humans included.

Read my most recent Animal Minds post: Does Singing Give Birds a Natural High?