Dec 30, 2014 11:51 AM EST By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A few alcoholic drinks may give someone the confidence to get up and sing in front of a crowded room, but they will do nothing to improve the quality of what comes out.

According to NPR, researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University set out to study the effect alcohol has on the brain in zebra finches. Such animals have been utilized in past studies to examine how humans learn and understand language.

They found that, like humans, the birds slur their signature song after consuming an alcoholic beverage.

"We just showed up in the morning and mixed a little bit of juice with 6 percent alcohol, and put it in their water bottles and put it in the cages," study lead author Christopher Olson said on NPR's "All Things Considered" with Arun Rath. "At first we were thinking that they wouldn't drink on their own because, you know, a lot of animals just won't touch the stuff. But they seem to tolerate it pretty well and be somewhat willing to consume it."

He said the song the finches sang was noticeably different, "a bit less organized in their sound production." To further the study, Olson said he and his team will examine the effect of alcohol on the finches' ability to learn new songs. He equated that to a student still remaining drunk in a morning class after a night of partying.

Olson and his team published their work in the journal PLOS One, according to the Washington Post.

"The most pronounced effects were decreased amplitude and increased entropy," the researchers wrote in the study. "We did not detect visible effects on the birds' general behaviors or health, as indicated by the normal appearance of feathers and the ability to perch, feed, maintain normal posture and fly inside the cage."

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