Frederic Theunissen

Associate Professor (Psychology)

Email: theunissen@berkeley.edu

Research areas: Developmental Neuroscience, Systems and Computational Neuroscience

The long-term goal of my laboratory is to understand the neural mechanisms underlying complex sound recognition, the formation of perceptual acoustical memories and the role of these memories in guiding vocal learning. In order to achieve our goal, we are studying neural processing in the auditory midbrain and forebrain of songbirds in the context of their song learning behavior. Songbirds learn to produce their complex songs by comparing the auditory feedback from their own vocalizations with a memorized version of a tutor’s song. This memory based vocal learning is reminiscent of some aspects of speech learning in humans and very rare in non-avian animals. We have found that neurons in the auditory cortex homologue of songbirds are preferentially tuned to the complex spectral and temporal structure that is found in natural sounds and in particular in animal vocalizations. We are currently examining how this tuning is affected by early sensory experience and how the auditory cortex of songbirds interacts with the brain areas responsible for song production and learning. Along with our physiological studies in songbirds, we pursue complimentary research in: methods and theories in computational neuroscience, animal vocal behavior and human speech perception. We hope that our research will provide insights into the neural basis of speech comprehension and learning in humans.

Selected Publications

Theunissen, F.E., David, S.V., Singh, N.C., Hsu, A., Vinje, W.E. and Gallant, J.L. 2001. Estimating spatio-temporal receptive fields of auditory and visual neurons from their responses to natural stimuli Network: Comp. Neural Syst. 12: 289-316.

Singh, N. and Theunissen, F.E. 2003. Modulation spectra of natural sounds and ethological theories of auditory processing JASA 114: 3394-3411.

Amin, N., Grace, G.A., and Theunissen, F.E. 2004. Neural Response to Bird’s Own Song and Tutor Song in the Zebra Finch Field L and Caudal Mesopallium J. Comp. Physiology A 190: 469-489.

Hsu, A., Woolley, S., Fremouw, T. and Theunissen, F.E. 2004. Modulation and phase spectrum of natural sounds enhance neural discrimination performed by single auditory neurons J. Neuroscience 24(41): 9201-21.

Woolley, S., Fremouw, T., Hsu, A. and Theunissen, F.E. 2005. Tuning for Spectro-temporal Modulations: a Mechanism for Auditory Discrimination of Natural Sounds Nature Neuroscience 8(10): 1371-9.