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Frederic Theunissen Associate Professor Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley
Neural Basis of Vocal Learning in Songbirds. Auditory Physiology. The long-term goal of my laboratory is to understand the neural mechanisms underlying complex sound recognition, the formation of perceptual acoustical memories and the role of these memories in guiding vocal learning. In order to achieve our goal, we are studying neural processing in the auditory midbrain and forebrain of songbirds in the context of their song learning behavior. We have found that neurons in the auditory cortex homologue of songbirds are preferentially tuned to the complex spectral and temporal structure that is found in natural sounds and in particular in animal vocalizations. We are currently examining how this tuning is affected by early sensory experience and how the auditory cortex of songbirds interacts with the brain areas responsible for song production and learning. Along with our physiological studies in songbirds, we pursue complimentary research in: methods and theories in computational neuroscience, animal vocal behavior and human speech perception. Selected Publications Theunissen FE, Sen K and Doupe AJ. Spectral-temporal receptive fields of nonlinear auditory neurons obtained using natural sounds. J. Neuroscience, 20(6):2315-2331, 2000 Theunissen FE, David SV, Singh NC, Hsu A, Vinje WE and Gallant JL. Estimating spatio-temporal receptive fields of auditory and visual neurons from their responses to natural stimuli. Network: Comp. Neural Syst.12 289-316, 2001 Sen K, Theunissen FE and Doupe AJ. Feature analysis of natural sounds in the songbird auditory forebrain. J. Neurophys. 86 1445-1459, 2001. Grace JA, Amin NA, Singh NC, Theunissen FE. Selectivity for Conspecific Song in the Zebra Finch Auditory Forebrain. J. Neurophys. 89 472-487, 2003 Sept 2006
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