This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. Keywords: cDNA, annotation, songbird, microarrays Abstract: The goal of this project is to generate a general purpose cDNA database resource of the songbird brain, for use in behavioral neurobiology experiments, particularly related to vocal learning. As of December 2002, the Genbank database lists on 72 cloned non-redundant zebra finch cDNAs, most of which are not full-length;this is certainly not enough to make evolutionary comparisons, cDNA microarrays, or other types of large scale neurogenomic comparisons. To narrow this molecular gap, we have formed a consortium of investigators from Duke University in the USA and RIKEN Institute in Japan, that has the following aims: 1) clone full-length cDNAs from a normalized zebra finch brain library that represents mRNAs expressed during commonly studied vocal communication states, 2) characterize these cDNAs by sequencing and forming a comprehensive knowledge base, and 3) use the cDNAs and knowledge base to generate and characterize non-reduntant microarrays for asking biological questions.