A hit of dopamine tells baby birds when their song practice is paying off

In his home office in Durham, Duke neuroscientist Richard Mooney shows a series of images of a bird's brain on song. In one, what looks like a pointillist painting illustrates a young zebra finch's myriad attempts to sound more like an adult, capable of wooing a mate. In another, squiggly lines trace the ebb and flow of chemical signals in the reward circuit of the bird's brain.