Murtaza Adam, IT & CLA
Studying sleep and learning in songbirds:
Neural correlates of vocal learning and sleep in a zebra finch model
Mentor / PI
Teresa Nick, Ph.D.
Department of Neuroscience
Brief Bio
I am a fifth year (super-senior) Biomedical Engineering and Physiology major. My hobbies include cycling and photography.
Why Research?
Although I have always been fascinated by science, my motive for pursuing a research project was initially practical: If I was going to get a relevant job after I graduated, I needed relevant experience. At least that was my rationale nearly three years ago when I first started working in Dr. Nick's laboratory. What I did not anticipate, however, was that this experience would be one of the most rewarding of my undergraduate career and would shape my goals for the future.
Research Summary
Humans spend approximately one third of their lives asleep. Why? For hundreds of years, brain researchers have been trying to answer this question. The idea that sleep may contribute to learning and memory is not novel. In fact, studies done as far back as the early 1800's indicate that the strength of a memory representation, or ‘trace,’ may be further sustained by periods of sleep when compared to equivalent periods of time awake.
In more recent years, technological advances have given neuroscientists the key to examining the brain and its relation to sleep on a cellular level. In the Nick Lab, we use the zebra finch songbird (arguably the best animal model for vocal learning) to study the potentially crucial interplay between the brain, learned behavior, and sleep. Many are suprised to hear that both songbird and human babies exhibit a "babbling" phase during their vocal development, emphasizing incredible semblance between the learned vocal acquisition of songbirds and speech acquisition of humans.
To carry out our experiments, we make use of chronic (long-term) neuronal recording techniques in awake and behaving animals during development and adulthood. This allows us to monitor the electrical activity of a specific brain area responsible for producing both vocalizations and sleep activity. This brain area is termed the High Vocal Center (HVC). Concurrently, we use sophisticated behavioral analyses to quantify the vocalizations of these animals, allowing us to further understand the relationship between the brain and behavior.
Most recently, our group has published exciting evidence that brain sleep activity in adult and juvenile finches is strikingly different (Crandall et al., 2007). It appears that juveniles have much less sleep activity in HVC than adults, indicating that sleep mechanisms are developmentally modulated. Moreover, this nightly sleep activity strongly correlates to overnight changes in song behavior (which are large in vocally immature juveniles and small in mature adults). These findings have now led me to my current project, where I am selectively perturbing nightly activity in HVC to parse out a causitive neurophysiological mechanism for sleep in the context of vocal learning and memory.
Selected Publications
Nick, T.A., Kinnischtzke, A.K., and Adam, M.A. (submitted). Rhythmic spiking in HVC during singing increases during the day and decreases after a night of sleep. Eighth International Congress of Neuroethology Abstracts.
Crandall, S.R., Adam, M.A., Kinnischtzke, A.K., and Nick, T.A.
(in press). HVC neural sleep activity increases with development and parallels nightly changes in song behavior. The Journal of Neurophysiology.
Upcoming Plans
I plan on attending medical school in the upcoming school year. I can say with confidence that this research experience has contributed to my current interest in pediatrics and neurology.