Young songbirds deprived of experience with adult song produce highly abnormal song structures. But, whereas their whereas their learning abilities are obviously affected, little is known about the effect of this early deprivation on the development of central auditory areas. In the present study, we hand raised young starlings and kept them in isolation from adult song until adulthood (2 years). We then investigated neuronal responses and the functional organization of their primary auditory central area: the field L complex. Previous neuroethological studies, performed on wild caught adult starlings, have shown that complex neuronal specializations could be observed in this area. Multicellular recordings have shown not only the well-known tonotopic functional organization of field L complex but also neuronal responses to special parts of the starling song like frequency modulations in different sub-areas. In the present study, we used multicellular recordings in order to investigate functional organization and neuronal specialization in field L complex of these starlings raised without any adult model. These experiments revealed a very poor specialization of the auditory neurones of field L complex. Moreover a very unorganised distribution of neuronal responses was clearly observed. These results show that the adult capacity to perceive and recognise precisely the different characteristics of the song is very dependent on the early developmental experience.