Vocal communication: from behavior to neurons

After a brief introduction on my computational neuroethological approach to the study of the brain, I will tell you two stories about vocal production and perception in somewhat unconventional species: birds and bats. In the Egyptian fruit bat, I will show how we’ve found vocal production of both innate and learned calls, and revealed a direct projection from the motor cortex to the vocal control centers that has been hypothesized to be key for producing complex vocal signals in vertebrates. In the zebra finch, I will demonstrate that this songbird conveys multiple pieces of information in its vocalizations and that we can leverage this rich repertoire to reveal how the sound to meaning transformation is performed by cortical neurons. My comparative and integrative approach to animal communication shows that specialized neural circuits support the cognitive abilities required for producing and interpreting social vocal signals.