Mechanisms underlying the acquisition, performance, and evolution of vocal communication

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Vocal communication is a diverse and evolutionary widespread form of communication. How this diversity is generated and regulated within and across species is a fundamental question in ethology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience. My interdisciplinary research program integrates systems, molecular, and comparative neuroscience to reveal fundamental mechanisms underlying the acquisition, performance, and evolution of vocal communication. My research program focuses on songbirds like zebra finches because they, like humans, learn their vocalizations during development and possess discrete neural circuits for vocal learning and performance. In addition, vocal learning and performance in both songbirds and humans are regulated by neuromodulators like dopamine and norepinephrine, by biological predispositions, and by activity in neural circuitry that have evolved through convergent mechanisms. Over the next five years, my research program will investigate (i) neuromodulatory influences on vocal learning and performance, (ii) mechanisms underlying biological predispositions in vocal learning, and (iii) mechanisms of neural circuit evolution for vocal learning. For example, I will use immunocytochemical, neuropharmacological, and behavioral approaches to reveal how dopamine and norepinephrine in sensorimotor circuits regulate vocal learning and control. I will also reveal how learning biases and activity in sensorimotor circuitry contribute to the emergence of acoustic patterns that are prevalent among songbirds and humans. Finally, because direct projections from sensorimotor areas in the forebrain to hindbrain vocal centers are hypothesized to underlying the evolution of vocal learning across vertebrates, I will examine the neuroanatomical and molecular specializations for these direct projections using novel, high-throughput genetic barcoding and genomic techniques. Taken together, my research program will uncover fundamental mechanisms underlying the learning, performance, and evolution of communicative behaviors. My studies will reveal neural mechanisms that generate behavioral diversity as well as biological processes that are shared between humans and non-human animals. In addition to generating high impact research, my program will also train HQP in cutting-edge neuroscience, molecular, and analytical tools that will prepare them for successful careers in academia and industry.