Seminar: “Birdsong and human speech: parallels and neural mechanisms” by Prof. Sharon M. H. Gobes

Prof. Sharon M. H. Gobes from Department of Neuroscience, Wellesley College, USA

Title:

Birdsong and human speech: parallels and neural mechanisms

Abstract:

What are the neural mechanisms by which we learn to talk? Birds are an excellent model system to answer this question because birds and humans show parallels in the way they learn to vocalize. I have shown that the left hemisphere is dominant for song learning in birds, just like language in humans. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. I will discuss how we are currently trying to answer this question in my laboratory with a range of different techniques.