Central pattern generator for vocalization: is there a vertebrate morphotype?

•Vocal communication is widespread among fishes, the largest group of vertebrates.•Vocal fish and tetrapods share an evolutionarily conserved hindbrain CPG region.•Vocal CPG of fish has compartments coding for distinct temporal properties.•Vocal CPG of fish displays temporal precision on a millisecond timescale.•Vocal CPG shares evolutionary developmental origins with pectoral movement system.

Animals that generate acoustic signals for social communication are faced with two essential tasks: generate a temporally precise signal and inform the auditory system about the occurrence of one's own sonic signal. Recent studies of sound producing fishes delineate a hindbrain network comprised of anatomically distinct compartments coding equally distinct neurophysiological properties that allow an organism to meet these behavioral demands. A set of neural characters comprising a vocal-sonic central pattern generator (CPG) morphotype is proposed for fishes and tetrapods that shares evolutionary developmental origins with pectoral appendage motor systems.