ICLM Journal Club
This Week
Date: 21 March 2014
Time: 09:30 am
Place : Gonda 2nd Floor Conference Room
Title: Behavior-driven FoxP2 regulation is necessary for songbird vocal learning
Speaker: Jon Heston (White Lab)
This is the third of this year's ICLM Junior Scientist Lecture Series.
Mutations in the transcription factor FoxP2 give rise to a specific language impairments in humans, making FoxP2 one of the few molecular toeholds into understanding the neural mechanisms underlying learned vocalization. Work by my lab and others has demonstrated that FoxP2 plays a necessary role in songbird vocal learning. My research extends these observations by using viral mediated overexpression of FoxP2 to show that behavior-driven decreases in FoxP2 levels are necessary for normal vocal learning. Moreover, I show that FoxP2 overexpression does not affect basal levels of variability but instead interferes with the ability to dynamically regulate vocal variability. Finally, I present preliminary evidence that suggests bidirectional shifts in basal ganglia output offer a plausible mechanism for these online changes in vocal variability. These results elucidate one mechanism by which FoxP2 supports vocal learning and gives insights into the potential treatment of speech and language disorders.
Here's a review that some might find helpful:
Twitter evolution: converging mechanisms in birdsong and human speech
About Us
Introduction
The Integrative Center for Learning and Memory (ICLM) is a multidisciplinary center of UCLA labs devoted to understanding the neural basis of learning and memory and its disorders. This will require a unified approach across different levels of analysis, including;
1. Elucidating the molecular cellular and systems mechanisms that allow neurons and synapses to undergo the long-term changes that ultimately correspond to 'neural memories'.
2. Understanding how functional dynamics and computations emerge from complex circuits of neurons, and how plasticity governs these processes.
3. Describing the neural systems in which different forms of learning and memory take place, and how these systems interact to ultimately generate behavior and cognition.
History of ICLM
The Integrative Center for Learning and Memory formally LMP started in its current form in 1998, and has served as a platform for many interactions and collaborations within UCLA. A key event organized by the group is the weekly ICLM Journal Club. For more than 10 years, graduate students, postdocs, principal investigators, and invited speakers have presented on topics ranging from the molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity, through computational models of learning, to behavior and cognition. Dean Buonomano oversees the ICLM journal club with help of student/post doctoral organizers. For other events organized by ICLM go to http://www.iclm.ucla.edu/Events.html.
Current Organizer:
Past Organizers:
i) Anna Matynia(Aug 2004 - Jun 2008) (Silva Lab)
ii) Robert Brown (Aug 2008 - Jun 2009) (Balleine Lab)
iii) Balaji Jayaprakash (Aug 2008 - Nov 2011) (Silva Lab)
iv) Justin Shobe & Thomas Rogerson (Dec 2011 - June 2013) (Silva Lab)
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