Our interest in sensitive period regulation
addresses a fundamental problem in
developmental neurobiology. As with
human langauge acquisition, birdsong
is learned during a sensitive period
that is restricted to juvenile stages
of life, and that requires the young
bird to hear and memorize the song
of another bird (usually that of its
own species).
Behavioral evidence shows that birds
will become refractory to acquiring
additional song models after the second
month of life, and will retain memories
(evinced by their capacity to vocal
re-express them) acquired during this
sensitive period for many years, even
throughout life. A likely scenario
is one where the central circuits for
singing and song learning are permanentaly
altered in their structure and function
by this early auditory experience-
trainess will directly participate
in identifying how these changes are
manifested.
This research has taken three major
directions in our lab, including behavioral
analysis of song development, in vivo
and in vitro intracellular electrophysiological
characterization of circuits serving
song learning, and the elucidation
of the cellular neuroanatomy of these
circuits. Our overarching goal is to
understand the manner in which the
bird's nervous system encodes song
in both the auditory and motor domains,
and how these representations interact
to mediate vocal learning.
These projects are directly relevant
to the CMB and UPG Program, because
they concern the manner in which early
experience alters the structure and
function of the nervous system. Because
there are strong genetic predispositions
for birds of a given species to learn
conspecific songs over those of other
species, there is also the potential
to explore the interaction of genetic
and experiential mechanisms that contribute
to species' typical behaviors. Trainees
will participate on any number of levels,
with the issue of sensitive period
regulation being an especially important
problem for the trainees to address
in their research program.
