Michael Long
Professor, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
Thomas and Suzanne Murphy Professor of Neuroscience and Physiology, Department of Neuroscience and Physiology
NYU

Using population recordings to uncover principles of neural circuit organization

The Long laboratory uses a range of species to uncover properties of neural circuits that enable skilled behavior. In the first half of the talk, we will examine how local processing and long-range influences work together to create behaviorally relevant neural dynamics. We address this issue by examining the song control pathway in the zebra finch, where we find that a key forebrain region contains sufficient synaptic information to enable local propagation of song-related sequences. We further demonstrate that long-range inputs from the motor thalamus can engage this circuitry in the service of behavior and large-scale brain synchronization. In the second half of the talk, we will present a new data set taken from a vocal production region in the parrot brain. Using dimensionality reduction techniques, we find that the organization of this circuit resembles the cortical speech production regions in humans and is categorically distinct from the zebra finch song production pathway.

A pizza lunch willl be served.