Alex Kozhevnikov Group
Penn State
University
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RESEARCH |
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Neural Mechanisms of Sequence
Generation and Learning in Songbird The research in our
lab focuses on the neural mechanisms of singing and vocal learning in birds.
Birds, like humans, are vocal learners - the young bird first listens to its tutor’s
song, and then, by practicing and evaluating its vocal performance, learns to
imitate it. The song of an adult bird has a robust behavioral pattern and the
anatomy of the brain circuits involved is well-documented. Such a unique
combination of a learned stereotypical pattern of behavior and tractable
anatomy makes the song control system of the songbirds a model system for
studies of neural sequence generation and learning of vocalizations. We are using
the technique which allows recording from identified neurons in singing
birds, yielding the most detailed information about neural activity in a
functioning neural circuit. This recording technique, in combination with
manipulations of sensory feedback and transient perturbation of neural
activity, allows to address fundamental questions about the neural mechanisms
underlying singing behavior in birds and, more generally, about the
computational principles of sequence generation and learning by neural circuits. Another
research project pursued in the lab is dielectric spectroscopy of biological
samples at radio- and microwave frequencies. We are developing techniques for
precision dielectric measurements of biological systems at Gigahertz
frequencies. |
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Alex Kozhevnikov |
Department of Physics |
phys.psu.edu