Using behavioral, anatomical, neurophysiological, endocrinological, cellular and molecular methods, Dr. Nottebohm’s research focuses on the behavioral, physiological and molecular variables that regulate neuron replacement, and on its significance in the process of learning. He also studies how neuronal replacement occurs and how it could be used to make up for cell losses due to injury or disease.

The process of song learning starts with food-begging calls, which morph sequentially into subsong, plastic song and adult song. Quantification of vocal learning requires an objective and sophisticated description of the sounds involved as well as careful attention to the timing of vocal change. Dr. Nottebohm’s studies also give close attention to the social and physiological context in which vocal imitation takes place. The brain pathways that control vocal learning are put together late in development, as a bird first learns its song, and are very sensitive to hormones and experience. New neurons are added to this pathway as older ones die, and there is a good correlation between the extent of ongoing vocal change and processes of neuronal replacement.

Spontaneous neuronal replacement is not restricted to the song system, but occurs in many parts of the avian forebrain. There, 5 to 10 percent of neuron types belong to the replaceable class. Dr. Nottebohm’s research explores the mechanisms that regulate neuronal production, migration, differentiation, death and replacement and identifies the circuits, cells and genes involved and the behavioral significance of neuronal replacement. In doing so, his lab is also interested in uncovering variables that determine what, when and how much birds learn; where the new information is stored; and how the two hemispheres of the brain contribute to learning.

At the Field Research Center in Millbrook, New York, 1,200 acres of natural habitat provide an environment in which to study songbird behavior and brain function under natural conditions. Dr. Nottebohm’s field studies complement studies of animals kept in simpler laboratory settings, where many aspects of brain function are likely to be underdeveloped or overlooked. Studies are conducted on canaries, zebra finches and free ranging songbirds and his interests range from the study of genes and stem cells to the ecology, sociobiology and evolution of vocal learning.

Dr. Nottebohm’s lab was the first to provide irrefutable evidence that new nerve cells are constantly born in an adult vertebrate brain, where they replace older cells of the same kind that have died. His work on the partly overlapping mechanisms that serve development, learning, brain rejuvenation and circuit repair has provided basic insights that have generalized well to mammals, changing the way we think about brains, brain aging, brain repair and learning. The knowledge of how to induce neuronal replacement in parts of the brain where it does not normally occur, and its use for repairing circuit damage, could lead directly to clinical applications for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders and stroke. It could hold the secret, too, for inducing brain rejuvenation.

CAREER

Born in Buenos Aires, Dr. Nottebohm earned his undergraduate degree in 1962 and his Ph.D. in 1966 at the University of California, Berkeley. He spent a year at Cambridge University as part of his doctoral training before joining Rockefeller University in 1967 as assistant professor. He became associate professor in 1971 and professor in 1976.

In 2006, Dr. Nottebohm was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science. He received the Karl Spencer Lashley Award of the American Philosophical Society in 2005 and the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in the Basic Sciences in 2004. In 1999, he shared the Ipsen Foundation Neuronal Plasticity Prize. Dr. Nottebohm received the McKnight Senior Investigator Award in Neuroscience in 1997 and shared the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health Sciences in 1992. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1988.