Understanding how learning is encoded in the brain remains one of the foremost challenges for neuroscience. We are using the barn owl auditory localization pathway as a model system to study the neural mechanisms of supervised learning. This pathway utilizes ascending information from both ears to synthesize a map of auditory space in the inferior colliculus. In this circuit, visual experience serves as a supervising influence which calibrates the map of auditory space during development and into adulthood. How visual experience guides this plasticity is not well understood. My training will approach one facet of this issue using a well-described paradigm for manipulating visual information-rearing young owls wearing prismatic spectacles. One primary goal of the research is to determine the extent to which the cyclic-AMP Response Element-Binding protein--a protein implicated in learning and plasticity in many systems-is activated within the inferior colliculus during prism adaptation. To do this I will use a combination of behavioral monitoring, electrophysiology, immunohistochemistry, confocal imaging, and quantitative image analysis. In total, these experiments should enhance our understanding of the biochemical link between behaviorally relevant experience and the learned changes imparted to the circuits of the auditory system. Relevance: The brain possesses a remarkable capacity to adapt with experience. This plasticity shapes many aspects of normal behavior, spanning from language learning during early childhood to adaptations to hearing loss in old age. Understanding how brain circuits change to generate adaptive behaviors will help us to better understand failures in plasticity (such as learning disorders) as well as normal brain function, and could potentially lead to treatments to prevent such failures.
| Nichols, Grant S; DeBello, William M (2008) Bidirectional regulation of the cAMP response element binding protein encodes spatial map alignment in prism-adapting barn owls. J Neurosci 28:9898-909 |
