News Neuroscience

Parrots and humans share a brain mechanism for speech

Budgerigar’s language centers use a "vocal keyboard" that’s surprisingly humanlike

Colorful small parrots called budgerigars or parakeets, one gray and one blue, sit next to each other.

Specific nerve cells in budgerigars’ brains allow the parrots to combine different elements of sounds, a new study shows.

Christopher Auger-Dominguez

By Laura Sanders

Updated

When it comes to speech, parrots have the gift of gab. And the way the brains of small parrots known as budgerigars bestow this gift is remarkably similar to human speech, researchers report March 19 in Nature. 

So far, budgerigars are the only animals known to have language-producing centers akin to those in humans, says Michael Long, a neuroscientist at New York University Langone Health.