International Research Fellowship Program: Mechanisms of Auditory Scene Analysis in the European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

Bee, Mark A, Columbia MO

Investigators

Abstract

0107304 Bee The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will provide twenty-four months of support to Dr. Mark A. Bee to work with Dr. Georg M. Klump at the University of Oldenburg in Bremen, Germany on the mechanisms of auditory scene analysis in the European Starling. The purpose of this research is to gain a greater understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms of auditory scene analysis, which is the organization of sounds into perceptual representations of the events that produced the sounds. The PI will study the neural basis of auditory scene analysis in the starling, a songbird that is an excellent model system of behavioral and neurobiological studies of auditory perception. He will use a methodological approach in which microelectrodes are chronically implanted into the starling's auditory cortex and neural responses to acoustic stimuli are recorded from awake, unrestrained birds via radiotelemetry. These experiments will identify areas of the auditory forebrain where different forms of auditory scene analysis occur and how these areas accomplish this complex task. The results will increase our understanding of the mechanisms of auditory scene analysis, contribute to a better understanding of human language acquisition and the evolution of hearing and potentially lead to the development of better hearing aids and voice-recognition-based computer-user interfaces. Dr. Klump, formerly of the University of Technische Universitat Munchen, is a leading expert in the study of comparative audition and hearing in birds, and is the PI on a grant held by eight research groups in the Munich area focussing on the mechanisms of auditory scene analysis.