The main interests in my lab are how information about the location of a sound source is represented in the brain and how this representation is shaped by sensory experience. We study the central auditory system of the barn owl because of the superb auditory localization capabilities of this animal. The acoustic basis for the owl's sound localization is similar to many other species including humans, but, perhaps because they rely on sound localization for survival, the neural representation of auditory space is sharper than in any other species studied. This enables us to identify biological effects with high sensitivity and confidence. I believe that answers to some of the basic questions in sensory physiology can be obtained through research on a specialized animal like the barn owl. Research in my lab focuses on two different directions: One is to study how the auditory pathways are shaped by experience. For this purpose young barn owls are raised in various acoustic environments (different levels and protocols of background noise). The effect of the acoustic experience on their brain and on their sound localization behavior is studied. We also explore the process of recovery after restoring normal acoustic experience (removal of background noise). This work is expected to contribute to our understanding of how adult behavior is determined by early life sensory experience. A second line of research is to study the combination of visual and auditory information in the barn owl's brain. The visual and the auditory systems provide information that is mutually independent and complementary. When objects can be both seen and heard, the cooperative combination of visual and auditory signals increases the capacity to detect and locate stimuli under a wide range of difficult conditions. The main open questions in this relatively new field are: Where in the brain do the interactions take place? And what are the rules that govern this interaction? In our lab we characterize the effects of visual stimuli on the auditory pathways, aiming to identify where and how visual and auditory signals interact in the brain. The importance of such physiological interactions on the behavior of the animal is also explored.
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