IBN 9816061 - "Neural Pathways for Auditory-Vocal Learning"
PI - Steven E. Brauth
The investigator will use a novel laboratory animal preparation, the budgerigar (M. undulatus) to investigate the neural basis of auditory-vocal learning. Auditory-vocal learning is a fundamentally important learning process in which individuals acquire communication sounds in a social context from other members of their species and is necessary for normal human speech acquisition. Budgerigars are used in these experiments because, as in humans, specialized brain pathways have evolved which interconnect auditory and vocal areas of the forebrain. In order to understand how these neural systems acquire and utilize learned communication sounds in a social context, the investigator will use a strategy which combines neuroanatomical techniques, which map out brain circuits, with powerful new methods which map expression of immediate early gene proteins. There is now overwhelming evidence that long term changes in neuronal function, such as those underlying learning and memory, depend on the expression of immediate early gene proteins. In this application, the investigator will first identify neurons which both process auditory feedback for vocal learning and also express the zenk immediate early gene protein (also called zif268, egr1, NGFIA, Krox 24). Zenk is believed to be closely related to the plasticity processes associated with vocal learning. The investigator will then assess the effects of dysfunction of these neurons on both vocal learning as well as on long term zenk expression by neurons in other portions of the auditory and vocal control systems.
