Heads of Laboratories
Dorothea L. Leonhardt Professor
Laboratory of Animal Behavior
Fernando.Nottebohm@rockefeller.edu
Songbirds learn their song by imitation and improvisation in a manner reminiscent of how humans learn the sounds of speech. Dr. Nottebohm’s pioneering studies of the song system of songbirds provided the first animal model for studying the biology of vocal learning. His work culminated in the discovery of replaceable neurons in the adult brain, an observation that raised basic questions about the biology of memory and the brain’s capacity for self-repair.
Dr. Nottebohm’s research moves along two parallel tracks — the biology of vocal learning and the biology of neuronal replacement. Both intertwine in the song system of songbirds. He uses behavioral, anatomical, hormonal, cellular and molecular tools to identify variables that regulate neuronal replacement and its significance for 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, some five percent of neuron types is estimated to belong to the replaceable class. Dr. Nottebohm’s research seeks to explore the mechanisms that regulate neuronal production, migration, differentiation, death and replacement and identify the circuits, cells and genes involved and the behavioral significance of neuronal replacement. His laboratory is also interested in uncovering variables that determine what, when and how much birds learn, where and how the new information is stored and how the two hemispheres of the brain contribute to learning. Recently, the laboratory developed the first transgenic songbird.
At the Center for Field Research in Ethology and Ecology in Millbrook, New York, 1,200 acres of natural habitats allow for observations on the behavior, anatomy and molecular biology of free-ranging animals living in nature, to complement observations made in simpler laboratory settings. Studies are conducted on canaries, zebra finches and wild songbirds. The lab’s 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, depending on which part of the brain and which species, they can add to an existing population or 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 the adult brain. The knowledge of how to induce neurogenesis and neuronal replacement in parts of the brain where it does not normally occur, and the use of that knowledge 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 the University of Cambridge as part of his doctoral training before joining Rockefeller 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 Basic Medical Science in 2004. In 1999 he shared the Ipsen Foundation Neuronal Plasticity Prize. Dr. Nottebohm received the McKnight Foundation Senior Investigator Award in neuroscience in 1997 and shared the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Health Sciences in 1992. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1988.
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